ANNISTON, Ala. — The city has been installing roundabouts. This reporter has been driving them. What follows is a ranking, from least to most spiritually destabilizing.
- The Small One By the Bank. Barely a roundabout. A suggestion. You could ignore it and probably have.
- The One With the Landscaping. Someone planted flowers in the middle. The flowers have seen things.
- The One By the School. Functional at all hours except the two that matter.
- The Two-Lane One. Nobody agrees which lane. Least of all the man in the Silverado, who has chosen violence.
- The One That Replaced a Perfectly Fine Four-Way Stop. We were happy. We didn't know we were happy.
- The One Near Oxford That Is Technically Three Roundabouts Holding Hands.
- The One With No Signage. You enter. You are inside it now. You may always have been.
- The One By the Interstate at 5 p.m. Time does not move here. Neither do you. A man three cars up has turned off his engine and begun to read.
Regional Medical Center reports no increase in roundabout-related admissions, though it declined to comment on admissions related to "general driving-around despair."
