If how one drives is truly a reflection of personality, then Wayzatans are in dire need of mandatory morning sedatives. It's getting hairy out there, folks.
On Wayzata Boulevard, the city's main artery, everybody seems to be terribly late -late for work, late for lunch, late for party supply shopping.
Couple perpetual lateness with a road design only Lucifer could love, and you've got an automotive gambit unlike any other this side of I-494.
It's Frogger meets NASCAR, and braving the treacherous turn-lanes and wacky one-ways requires maximum moxie.
I actually passed on a car wash at Gerrings last week because, as I explained to a co-worker, "I didn't want to risk the left turn."
Colonial Square, the boulevard's co-conspirator and Wayzata's commercial Mecca, is equally hazardous.
Good luck getting from Lunds to Brueggers at high noon on a Tuesday without incident - it's white knuckle at 10 mph. Backing out from a black diamond parking spot at Blockbuster is no picnic either, but it's nothing compared to actually leaving the complex.
Try making a left-turn, any left-turn, out of the square - you gotta have iced tea in your veins (sugar free, of course).
The Square is like Beirut with really nice cars, and the Lunds grocery attendants are its unsung heroes risking life and limb to ensure swift trunk loading. I hear they appreciate tips that fold.
I don't dare enter the Square without ample preparation. On Sunday nights I head to the empty lot and play out various scenarios, sharpening my skills like a seasoned athlete.
Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I go cruise around the moonlit lot in my jammies. It's liberating.
So. Is help on the way? Maybe. Maybe not. In 2004 Wayzata officials built a plan to make the beloved Wayzata corridor easier to navigate after a study showed the adjacent Colonial Square and Burger King driveways to be unsafe.
But since Wayzata Boulevard is technically County Road 101, any construction is under the county's purview - the plot thickens.
With a developer primed to tackle the vacant Burger King lot, a window might be opening for some road work - but don't hold your breath, as funding issues still need finalizing.
County officials believe, and city officials hope, that road construction will get underway by early 2008 at the latest, but just in case plans fall through, I have some of my own.
Plan A is called the "Wayzata Corridor Traffic Recovery Center and Spa for Vehicular Catharsis and Closure," or Vehi-Cures for short.
After the city seizes the vacant Burger King lot, it converts it into a state of the art facility offering counseling, deep tissue massage and aromatherapy - all to the ambient sounds of nature (birds, light forest drizzle).
Soothing perturbed drivers is no small task. Speed freaks and cut-off-aholics will enjoy free workshops like "Moving Violations Meditation," where the mantra is "Green means go ... red means stop ... yellow is slightly ambiguous."
Parking lot disputes can be settled by counselors, and ninth-grade interns are available to reteach adults how to use their turn signal.
But if building Vehi-Cures is cost prohibitive, there's always Plan B, which involves folks walking up and down the boulevard yelling "This is a neighborhood!"
