Locals Alarmed By Foreign Customs Called “Turn Signals” and “Brake Lights”

By Tom Seest

At Sequatchie Crossing, we tell the stories of Sequatchie Crossing.

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🎤 Audio Overview

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Prologue: A Town Unprepared

Sequatchie Crossing prided itself on being a place where nothing needed to be announced. Roads bent and twisted like gossip, and if you didn’t know where someone was turning, you probably didn’t know them well enough to deserve the knowledge. Cars slowed when they felt like slowing, stopped when they felt like stopping, and nobody expected explanations.

But one summer weekend, strange blinking lights came to town — and Sequatchie Crossing has not been the same since.

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Act I: The First Blink

It was Mabel Dean Ashcroft who saw it first. She was standing outside the Piggly Wiggly with her clipboard, tallying carts abandoned in the lot, when she noticed a Ford Explorer with Florida plates.

“One side of the thing just started flashing,” she recounted later, still shaken. “Bright as a firefly on steroids, going blink, blink, blink like a coded message.”

The Explorer slowed, signaled right, and entered the lot in a dignified turn. Its brake lights glowed red like a warning flare.

“That’s not natural,” Mabel whispered.

Other shoppers froze. A man with a 12-pack of RC Cola dropped it, cans fizzing across the blacktop. Children shielded their eyes. An old woman clutched her pearls.

By the time the driver had parked, word was already spreading across town: outsiders were bringing flashing devices into Sequatchie Crossing.

Boot Barnes was among the first to complain. Later that day, at Betty Lou’s Diner, he described his near-death experience on Highway 8.

“I was followin’ this SUV, minding my business, when all of a sudden its backside lit up like a Christmas tree. I thought the end times had come. Daisy nearly jumped out the truck bed.”

Half the diner crossed themselves. The other half demanded pie.

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Act II: Sunday Service Interrupted

The next morning, Reverend Gentry’s sermon was derailed before it began. He had just opened his Bible when Mabel Dean stood up mid-pew.

“Pastor, I have a pressing matter of prophecy,” she announced.

He sighed. “Sister Ashcroft, we’re in the middle of—”

“What do these blinking lights mean? Are they a sign from above?”

The congregation stirred.

Clovis Strickland rose in the back row, holding a spiral notebook filled with frantic chicken-scratch. “I’ve tracked the intervals! Three blinks to the right, pause, two blinks to the left. That’s Morse code. They’re not drivers — they’re agents. Spies! Invaders!”

Mabel nodded solemnly.

Sheriff Peeler groaned. “It’s just blinkers, folks. Out-of-towners use them to signal turns. Perfectly legal. Perfectly normal.”

But no one heard him. The church was buzzing. One woman whispered about Revelations. Another swore the lights were portals to the underworld. Daisy the hound let out a long, mournful howl that sealed the matter: Sequatchie Crossing was under siege.

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Act III: The Town Meeting

Monday night, the courthouse filled beyond capacity. Folding chairs creaked, fans clicked overhead, and the smell of fried chicken carried in from the fellowship hall.

Sheriff Peeler tried to keep order, but Daisy snored loudly beneath his desk.

Clovis unfurled a makeshift chart taped together from butcher paper. “Observe these blinking patterns,” he declared, pointer stick trembling. “A left signal at 2.3-second intervals? That’s a communique to the mothership.”

“That’s nonsense!” Billy Hooper argued, standing. “Those lights are just communication. They’re saying, ‘Hey neighbor, I’m turning right.’ It’s polite!”

The room booed.

Boot Barnes stood, jabbing a finger. “Polite? It’s arrogance! You don’t need to tell me you’re stopping. Just stop! If I run into you, that’s my business.”

Mabel banged her clipboard on the table. “We need an ordinance! These blinking contraptions are disturbing the peace. Children are frightened. Grown men are ditching their trucks.”

Old Man Cagle muttered from the corner, “Back in my day, we didn’t need lights. We just yelled, ‘Whoa!’ and hoped the feller behind us had good brakes.”

The meeting dissolved into shouting. Some called for outlawing the blinkers. Others demanded Sequatchie build its own “anti-blink task force.”

Sheriff Peeler banged the gavel. “Enough! We’ll draft something. But nobody’s getting arrested for using a turn signal, not on my watch.”

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Act IV: Ordinances and Opportunists

The Zoning Board, still embarrassed after their accidental approval of a medieval castle, scrambled to pass a law:

“No Excessive Flashing on County Roads Without Prior Approval.”

It was vague, contradictory, and immediately controversial.

Did it apply to cars? To Christmas lights? To fireflies? The volunteer fire department worried it would outlaw emergency flashers. Billy Hooper’s cousin asked if it applied to the neon “OPEN” sign at his pawn shop.

Mabel Dean declared herself Chair of the Anti-Blink Task Force, complete with a roster, clipboards, and reflective vests. Her squad marched Main Street every evening, writing down license plates.

Meanwhile, Boot Barnes saw dollar signs. He printed bumper stickers at the Dunlap Restaurant copier and sold them for $5 apiece:

• “Sequatchie Drivers Don’t Signal.”

• “Blink and You’ll Miss Hell.”

• “Keep Sequatchie Dark.”

They sold out in hours. Boot opened a waiting list.

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Act V: The Business Divide

At the Chamber of Commerce, a quieter debate simmered.

“Look,” said Elliot from EnerGen, adjusting his tie. “Visitors with blinkers are easier to predict. That means fewer parking lot wrecks. That means less insurance claims. And it means more outsiders stopping at our stores because they can actually see when someone’s slowing down.”

The hardware store owner nodded. “Had a guy from Chattanooga pull in last week. Said he loved that our roads had ‘character.’ Bought two shovels, a pack of nails, and lunch at the Dunlap Restaurant. Never would’ve happened if he’d rear-ended Boot.”

Still, public sentiment swayed toward suspicion. Mabel’s task force staged a march through downtown chanting, “One town, one road, no blinking code!”

Sheriff Peeler rolled his eyes and escorted them safely across the street — ironically using his cruiser’s flashing lights.

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Act VI: Schoolyard Confusion

By Thursday, the controversy reached Sequatchie Elementary.

Kids returned home mimicking blinker patterns with flashlights, confusing parents. One boy duct-taped a flashlight to his bicycle and rode around in circles until Old Man Cagle yelled at him for “bringing the invasion into my yard.”

The PTA met in emergency session. Mabel Dean pushed for banning “blinker education” from the curriculum. A science teacher tried to explain electricity and circuits, but parents shouted her down.

One father demanded that the school adopt Sequatchie-approved signals: honking twice for right turns, three times for left, and slamming the door when braking. The motion was tabled only because the janitor pulled the fire alarm by accident.

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Act VII: Clovis and the Overlook

Clovis Strickland set up a “Blinker Observatory” on the Sequatchie Overlook. Using binoculars and a lawn chair, he documented every out-of-town vehicle that dared flash.

“These are patterns,” he told the Sequatchie Enquirer. “Left blinker, pause, brake light — that’s a coded message from Washington. Or Moscow. Or Nashville.”

Tourists began pulling over just to wave their hazard lights at him. Clovis recorded each sequence as evidence.

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Act VIII: Daisy the Arbiter

Through it all, Daisy the hound remained uninterested. She napped beneath squad cars, tail thumping in rhythm with flashing lights.

Locals began to see Daisy as a kind of neutral party. “If Daisy don’t mind it,” Old Man Cagle said, “maybe we shouldn’t neither.”

Boot Barnes countered that Daisy was “probably hypnotized by government rays.” He proposed fitting her with an aluminum-foil collar, which Clovis enthusiastically supported.

Sheriff Peeler vetoed the idea. “If Daisy says it’s fine, it’s fine. End of story.”

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Epilogue: A Fragile Truce

By week’s end, Sequatchie Crossing had reached its version of peace.

Out-of-towners kept blinking, slowing, and stopping with infuriating predictability. Locals continued their chaotic maneuvers, announcing nothing. But now, each time a blinker flashed, Sequatchians muttered, spat, and carried on.

The ordinance sat unenforced, Boot’s stickers spread across rusted trucks, and Mabel Dean filed weekly “Blinker Reports” that nobody read.

And Daisy, faithful as ever, slept under the Sheriff’s cruiser lights — the only flashes Sequatchie Crossing ever truly trusted.

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⚠️ Disclaimer

The Sequatchie Crossing Dispatch is a work of satire. While the characters, events, and ordinances described here are delightfully absurd, they exist purely for entertainment. No actual town has banned blinkers (yet), and any resemblance to real persons or municipalities is purely coincidental. If you find yourself upset, please consider using your turn signal — it may help others anticipate your next move.

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