It began, as these things often do, on a Wednesday. Not the chaotic optimism of Monday, not the emotional exhaustion of Friday, but the beige middle ground of the week where nothing’s supposed to happen. And yet…

I was walking home from the shop, carrier bag in hand, mentally debating whether a packet of biscuits could constitute dinner, when I saw it. There, on the kerbside, stood a lone traffic cone. Orange. Resolute. A splash of colour in the grey drizzle.

It looked tired, if that’s possible for an object without muscles.

Not physically tired — it wasn’t slumping or anything — but emotionally. You could tell it had been out in all weathers. Probably endured the occasional kick from a bored teenager or had a takeaway coffee cup wedged on its top by some aspiring street artist.

I slowed down.

Cones usually travel in herds. They’re pack animals, bred for the long, slow migrations of roadworks. Seeing one alone felt… wrong. Had it been separated from its family? Was this the result of some violent overnight reshuffle by the council?

I approached with caution. The key to befriending a cone, I reasoned, is respect. No sudden moves. No patronising pat on the top. I adopted my “nervous goose” stance: knees bent, gaze averted, small sideways shuffles. A man walking his dog stopped to watch. The dog looked concerned.

“Alright, mate,” I said, softly, as though I were greeting an old friend across a library.

The cone didn’t reply, but I sensed… a shift. Not physical, but in the atmosphere. An acknowledgement. Or possibly just a change in the wind. Still, I pressed on.

I told it about my day: the woman in the supermarket who loudly described an aubergine as “erotic,” the bus driver who winked at me for no apparent reason, my ongoing dilemma about whether to commit to a houseplant. The cone listened — or at least didn’t move away, which in cone terms is practically leaning in.

After several minutes of this one-sided rapport-building, I decided it was time for a gesture. A gift. In the animal kingdom, this could be food, grooming, or a shiny pebble. I rummaged in my bag and found a Werther’s Original. Perfect. A classic token of goodwill.

I placed it carefully at the cone’s base. It didn’t flinch, which I took as a good sign. We stood there in mutual stillness, two souls connected by… well, nothing really, but it felt significant.

That’s when the council van appeared.

It pulled up without warning, the door slid open, and a man in hi-vis hopped out. He did not make eye contact with me. He picked up the cone — my cone — and tossed it into the back with the cold efficiency of someone who doesn’t have time for municipal romance.

I opened my mouth to protest, but the van was already pulling away. The Werther’s remained on the pavement, alone.

I stood there in the drizzle, holding my carrier bag of biscuits, feeling as though I had just witnessed the final scene of a French art film about unrequited love.

I never saw that cone again. But I like to think that somewhere, in a council depot lit by flickering strip lights, it remembers me — the stranger who, for one brief Wednesday, tried to cross the great divide between man and municipal plastic.

And perhaps, one day, when I least expect it, I’ll see it again. Standing proud. Watching over a freshly filled pothole. Waiting.

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Dwight Warner

Dwight Warner is the quintessential oddball Brit, with a weirdly American-sounding name, who has a knack for turning the mundane into the extraordinary. Hailing originally from London, now living in the sleepy depths of Lincolnshire but claiming an allegiance to the absurd, Dwight has perfected the art of finding the surreal in real life. Whether it’s a spirited rant about the philosophical implications of queueing or a deep dive into why tea tastes better in a mug older than you, his blogs blur the line between the abstract and the everyday.

With an irreverent wit and a penchant for tangents that somehow come full circle, Dwight Warner doesn’t just write; he performs on the page. His humour is both sharp and delightfully nonsensical, like Monty Python met your nosiest neighbour and they decided to co-write a diary.

Known for being gregarious, Dwight is the life of any (real or metaphorical) party, whether he’s deconstructing the existential crisis of mismatched socks or sharing his inexplicable theories about why pigeons are secretly running the economy.

A larger-than-life personality with a laugh as loud as his opinions, Dwight Warner invites readers to step into a world where everything’s slightly askew—and that’s exactly how he likes it.

The post The Day I Tried to Befriend a Traffic Cone appeared first on untypicable..