Thursday, November 17, 2005
Traffic sucks
OK, so driving in to school today (my one hour, one-way commute) I get caught up in traffic. HEAVY traffic. I'm less than two miles from where I normally stop every morning and get my daily Egg McMuffin. I can see that everyone is getting into the right-hand lane so I figure that there must be some road work going on up ahead and I follow suit.
Now, I could have flew up the left-hand lane and vaulted myself to the front and likely saved myself a ton of time but I decided to take the moral high ground and sit tight. It seemed that everyone was doing the same thing so I felt good in amongst my fellow courteous drivers.
Looking in my driver's side mirror I could see a white van flying up the left-hand lane with many other cars right behind it. I decided to whip out my jerk hat and pulled into the left-hand lane and sat there, matching the crawling pace of traffic and effectively blocking anyone else from getting past the line of cars that were patiently waiting. The van, of course, tried to be intimidating and rode my bumper like it was my siamese twin. I was tempted, at one point, to stop my car completely and get out. I'm a big guy and have been told that I'm extremely intimidating. I would have loved to have seen the look on this guy's face. At any rate, traffic started to pick up speed so I pulled back into the right -hand lane (the car behind me having saved my spot for me) and we continued on. But, not for long.
Traffic again came to a dead crawl and this time, I didn't have the option of blocking it off because it was now packed in both lanes. To make matters worse, the traffic in the other lane seemed to be making better time than I was. For me, that seems to be par for the course. If I'm in a grocery store, no matter how short the line I am in is, the next line over that I passed up to get into this short one is always moving faster.
50 minutes and 2 miles later (I wish I was exaggerating) I finally reach my exit. Unfortunately, so does everyone else. There is apparently a huge accident on the highway ahead and traffic was being completely routed off the highway and along back roads to the next exit. Which also meant that "MY" McDonald's was being overrun with customers. The drive-thru was packed but it looked as though the inside of the restaurant was just as bad. Plus, I had had a run-in with one of the extremely inept workers inside before so I decided to just sit in the drive-thru lane and continue listening to the radio. Another error in judgement.
In front of me in the McD's drive-thru is a minivan full of kids and a woman who, I see in her rear-view mirror, is talking on her cell-phone. On the rear-view window of the van is one of those white and black static-sticker soccer balls. The line for drive-thru extends all the way out to the edge of the parking lot and it easily takes 10 minutes before she gets to the box where you place your order. This is the moment when, while still talking on the phone, she decides to find out what her kids want for breakfast. I begin beating my head against the steering wheel in an attempt to make the bad voices go away. As evil and heartless as this woman may be, seeing her beaten senseless with her cell-phone would likely leave some sort of emotional scaring on the children.
Finally, my turn at the squak box and I place a simple order of two Egg McMuffins and a small diet coke. It takes another 5 minutes just to get to the payment window and I again sit and wait while the woman in the minivan deals with her phone (she must have a great rate plan) and bags upon bags of food. My steering wheel is beginning to develop a dent in the top from where my head is banging against it.
OK, so driving in to school today (my one hour, one-way commute) I get caught up in traffic. HEAVY traffic. I'm less than two miles from where I normally stop every morning and get my daily Egg McMuffin. I can see that everyone is getting into the right-hand lane so I figure that there must be some road work going on up ahead and I follow suit.
Now, I could have flew up the left-hand lane and vaulted myself to the front and likely saved myself a ton of time but I decided to take the moral high ground and sit tight. It seemed that everyone was doing the same thing so I felt good in amongst my fellow courteous drivers.
Looking in my driver's side mirror I could see a white van flying up the left-hand lane with many other cars right behind it. I decided to whip out my jerk hat and pulled into the left-hand lane and sat there, matching the crawling pace of traffic and effectively blocking anyone else from getting past the line of cars that were patiently waiting. The van, of course, tried to be intimidating and rode my bumper like it was my siamese twin. I was tempted, at one point, to stop my car completely and get out. I'm a big guy and have been told that I'm extremely intimidating. I would have loved to have seen the look on this guy's face. At any rate, traffic started to pick up speed so I pulled back into the right -hand lane (the car behind me having saved my spot for me) and we continued on. But, not for long.
Traffic again came to a dead crawl and this time, I didn't have the option of blocking it off because it was now packed in both lanes. To make matters worse, the traffic in the other lane seemed to be making better time than I was. For me, that seems to be par for the course. If I'm in a grocery store, no matter how short the line I am in is, the next line over that I passed up to get into this short one is always moving faster.
50 minutes and 2 miles later (I wish I was exaggerating) I finally reach my exit. Unfortunately, so does everyone else. There is apparently a huge accident on the highway ahead and traffic was being completely routed off the highway and along back roads to the next exit. Which also meant that "MY" McDonald's was being overrun with customers. The drive-thru was packed but it looked as though the inside of the restaurant was just as bad. Plus, I had had a run-in with one of the extremely inept workers inside before so I decided to just sit in the drive-thru lane and continue listening to the radio. Another error in judgement.
In front of me in the McD's drive-thru is a minivan full of kids and a woman who, I see in her rear-view mirror, is talking on her cell-phone. On the rear-view window of the van is one of those white and black static-sticker soccer balls. The line for drive-thru extends all the way out to the edge of the parking lot and it easily takes 10 minutes before she gets to the box where you place your order. This is the moment when, while still talking on the phone, she decides to find out what her kids want for breakfast. I begin beating my head against the steering wheel in an attempt to make the bad voices go away. As evil and heartless as this woman may be, seeing her beaten senseless with her cell-phone would likely leave some sort of emotional scaring on the children.
Finally, my turn at the squak box and I place a simple order of two Egg McMuffins and a small diet coke. It takes another 5 minutes just to get to the payment window and I again sit and wait while the woman in the minivan deals with her phone (she must have a great rate plan) and bags upon bags of food. My steering wheel is beginning to develop a dent in the top from where my head is banging against it.
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