Why I'm Starting to HATE the Color Orange

I've always thought it was a myth that bulls get pissed off when they see red. Seriously, how could a color tick you off?

However, I'm starting to empathize with the bulls-- except that my trigger is now the color orange.

Orange has never been my favorite color, it's true. I don't think that I've ever owned a single orange piece of clothing, and I can't imagine using it to decorate my house. I like oranges and orange juice, but I've always wondered why they named a fruit after a color? And, orange is one of the few words in the English language that you just can't use in a poem because NOTHING rhymes with it.

My negative feelings toward orange began when I got married and my husband went hunting with his brothers. Not only did he get to leave to play all weekend, but then he came home and dumped his orange-covered hunting crap in the entry way. My dad used to do that too. Must be a primal thing.

Man hunt. Then take shower and nap.

Woman clean up the crap.

All that being said, my reasons for HATING orange have nothing to do with any of that. I hate orange for one reason:

Road Construction.

I don't know how the karma has gotten so misaligned this summer, but between the American Fork Irrigation Fiasco, UDOT's SR-92 projects, the AF trails project and regular old road repair, I swear that EVERY road that goes ANYWHERE from my house has been under construction.

I'm getting to the point where my blood pressure rises when I see so much as an orange cone on the side of the road. The flourescent orange paint that they use to spray-paint the road before they dig it up makes me shake. And, when I see one of these:

I want to go CRAZY.

Orange is REALLY messing up my cycling. I have about 5 standard 10-16 mile rides that I do regularly. Last week, 4 of the 5 were impossible to ride due to orange.

Nothing ticks me off more than waiting forever in a line of cars because they've closed a road down to one lane of traffic-- and when you finally pass the area where the work is being done, you see maybe one guy dinking around with a shovel while 4 or 5 others are smoking cigarettes on the curb.

All of them, of course, are wearing ORANGE vests. Their orange vests make me see red.

Can you feel my pain? It's no wonder to me that they make prisoners wear orange jump suits.

It's part of their punishment.