Here is something to really think about. If you arrive at a crosswalk and the light is red and there's a person standing next to the pedestrian crossing button, assume that he or she has already pressed the damn thing (maybe even several times and very hard each time) and just wait with them in the eternity between the change of the robot's lights. This is the proper thing to do. They got there first. They were not born yesterday. They know all about the button. For you to press it under their eyes instantly communicates to them that you think they are as dumb as two rocks, that they have no idea what that funny thing is all about, that they are wholly ignorant of the desirable effect it may have on the robot hanging over the busy street.

This is indeed what happened to me not too long ago at the crosswalk on Rainier and Oregon. I arrived at the intersection at around 10 a.m., immediately pressed the ball of a button, and began waiting for the robot to respond to my request. The robot seemed, as usual, too preoccupied with supporting the flow of cars to notice my pressing and waiting—this robot, however, is much more responsive to pedestrians at around 7 p.m. at night. A young family appeared behind me—white, a big dog, a father, a mother, two daughters. The youngest daughter assumed I had not pressed the button and attacked it with the kind of violence you would expect to burst from a furry little animal like a ferret. She pressed and pressed and pressed and shook her feral blond hair as she did this frenzy of pressing. The robot rewarded her miserable effort with monumental indifference, and I had to wait there forever with this rude girl (she thinks I'm Forrest Gump or something) and her oblivious (no apologies) but happy family. A black man invented the robot.