LETTERS: I'VE GOT YOUR DETOUR RIGHT HERE

To the editor:

I'm dizzy. Not acutely so, like Jimmy Stewart in "Vertigo." Not even blonde bombshell dizzy like tabloid tart Anna Nicole on, say, "Celebrity Jeopardy." It's worse than that. Much worse. My dizziness stems, as may yours, from the fact that the streets of Cape Girardeau have been gutted like a shoe store in the wake of Imelda Marcos. Or worse yet, any warm-blooded trophy kill hanging in Ted Nugent's rec room.

Recipe for insanity: Try going from point A to point B in this town in a timely and efficient manner. You can't do it. At least not without transforming from a mild-mannered Bill Bixby into a green and surly Lou Ferrigno.

Not that I'm opposed to progress. Quite the contrary. I'm a big fan. Even so, have we not bitten off more than we can chew? Is there not a place where progress ends and collective road rage begins? Face it. We have taken a big, fat bit of the progress pie and are choking on it.

Not to whoever is in charge: Wake up, Van Winkle. Were' dyin' over here.

Please, you'll have to excuse me. I hate to sound bitter. It just, you know, I long for the old days of like a year ago when a guy could go on a milk run and have a puncher's chance of getting it back home before the expiration date. It was a simpler time. A time when you could count those hideous and now all-too-familiar detour signs on one hand of a bad shop teacher. Honestly, those signs are multiplying like lab rabbits on Viagra. Even the street gangs are confused.

I reckon we'll just have to suck it up. Such is life. So it goes, that until we focus our efforts on other thing, like ... hmmm ... finishing a certain bridge, we will just have to readjust our thinking. Be more patient. More positive, if you will. Actually, I'm already positive -- positive that this joint is starting to make a rat maze look like the German autobahn.

But hey, I'll live. I mean, it's not so bad going from my apartment in the middle of Cape Girardeau to the mall via Ste. Genevieve. There are far worse thing in the world, right? Political unrest. Human suffering. Not to mention worldwide syndication of "Baywatch." It'll pass in due time.

On second thought, trying to drive through Cape Girardeau is, in fact, the worst plight known to man.

Second not to whoever is in charge: Please. I'm beggin' ya. Ixnay on the conjestionay.

Otherwise, people like me may lose their sunny and optimistic dispositions.

MICHAEL YOUNG

Cape Girardeau