La Crosse Times Year In Review – February

LA CROSSE, WIS — In response to a troubling number of cars not yielding for students crossing at crosswalks, the School District of La Crosse has decided to purchase an ED-209 to assume full-time crossing guard duties. 

The Enforcement Droid, Series 209, or ED-209, is a fully-automated series of peacekeeping machines created by Omni Consumer Products (OCP). The units were programmed for urban pacification, but OCP also negotiated contracts with the military for use in war. The machines were soon deactivated after the droid went on a rampage and killed a junior executive. 

Now the war-machine has been reactivated and reprogrammed for one duty and one duty only: full-combat crossing guard. 

“Despite all of our efforts, people still just fly through our crosswalks and around our buses,” said La Crosse School District Safety Administrator Claritin Bungeecord, “so we decided to get tough.”

Since ED started full time crossing-guard duties two weeks ago, there has not been a single report of a driver speeding through the crosswalk or past school busses. As a matter of fact, traffic near the schools is down 78% overall since ED’s first day. 

Unfortunately there have been two reported incidences by school officials. The first being a stray cat that strayed too close to a school crosswalk and did not heed ED’s warning of, “Back away from the crosswalk. You have 10 seconds to comply” before being turned into kitty hamburger. The second incident involved a severe design flaw in ED as he tripped and fell over a dangerous six inch curb and was unable to get up. 

“The kids just love him,” added Bungeecord, “To us, he’s not ED-209. He’s Eddie the crossing guard.” 

Reporter Dr. Jonathan H. Dong contributed to this article.