The Lonely Traffic Light

	Once upon a time, there was a traffic light… a lonely traffic light. She felt that nobody gave her much attention. Sometimes people would stand by her and push the button for the light to change, and she felt less lonely while they were waiting. But once the light changed the people would leave and cross the street. At times, when the light was red, the people waiting in the cars would give her their attention as they waited for the light to turn green. That also made her less lonely, but not for long. Once the light turned green the cars would zoom by without noticing that she existed. Then, the traffic light noticed that there was a little red car that passed by early every morning and again every afternoon. It was a mother and two little kids dropping off their Daddy at the train station in the morning and picking him up in the afternoon. Sometimes when the light was red, the two kids would wave to the traffic light, show her their stuffed animals, or stare at her waiting for the light to change. That made her very happy. At other times when the light was green the car would go right through the intersection and the little kids wouldn't even look at the light. That made her very sad. The traffic light wanted the attention of the two little children and decided that the next time she saw the car she would turn herself red. That would give the kids a chance to wave to her or stare at her. She thought the idea sounded very nice, so that is what she did the next morning and afternoon when she saw the red car. After a few days of switching herself, the circuit inside of her pole got messed up and the light stayed on yellow. She tried very hard to switch it to red or green but she just couldn't. The next morning, the repairmen came and opened the little door on the side of her pole. They worked for a couple of hours and found the problem. The switch that she used to turn the light from red to yellow to green had burnt out. In a few minutes they had replaced the bad switch and the traffic light was back to normal. Now she was again able to stop the red car and see the little children every morning and afternoon. But after a few days the switch burnt out again and the repairmen had to come out to fix it once more. As they were working, the traffic light could hear them talking to each other. She heard them saying that the traffic light must be getting too old and that it was really hard for all of the people, because it was making traffic jams when she broke down. When she looked up she saw a huge line of cars all waiting and honking. All of the people in them were very upset because they couldn't get where they needed to go. It was then that the traffic light realized how important she was to all of the people in their cars. She had always thought that they were simply ignoring her when they drove away, but now she knew that without her no one would be able to drive anywhere. Then she felt very bad that she had caused all of these problems.  The traffic light did not want to make people unhappy, so she decided that from now on she would only switch herself from green to red when it was the proper time so that her  switch wouldn't  burn out too soon. She thought of how happy it made people when she was working properly, and she knew that she would still see the kids every day, even if it was for only a few seconds. That made her VERY happy, and from that day on she was never lonely again. Copyright © 2000 Goodnight Stories
The End