Traffic? What Traffic?
Today I'm going to talk about a safe and viable way to deal with the seven million people trying to block me from getting on the highway every day after work.
Oh sure, you think I'm exaggerating, but frankly I think that's a grossly conservative estimate. I've seen Iowa, Arkansas, and Nebraska plates, and even Kansas and Missouri plates from counties, get this, nowhere near the Kansas City area. Clearly, people are coming from hundreds of miles away to keep me from merging into heavy traffic that I don't want to be in anyway.
I used to do what most of you I'm sure thought would be the logical way to approach the problem. And that would be: swerve from a dead stop in front of 18-wheelers going 80 miles an hour piloted by Guatemalan housewives who haven't slept for nine days and are just starting their periods, drive at speeds a fighter jet would get pulled over for, and tailgate the poor sap in front of you so closely there is iminent danger of automotive intercourse taking place.
You know you do it, people. And when none of that barbaric behavior gets you anywhere, you shake your fist and shriek bloody murder at everything from drivers going three miles an hour in front of you and letting the whole of motorized civilization in front of them, to idle construction workers at the side of the road who laugh and point at random things, to people talking on their cell phones while trying to slide over to an exit they missed ten minutes ago.
But now I do things differently. First I roll along a lane that will soon merge with a ravine, waiting for the 79 people on cell phones in the lane next to me to notice I'm there and slide up tightly so I can't get in. If by some miracle I can squeeze between two people who are probably distracted by a second call or dialing for pizza delivery, I next face, calmly now with my new traffic demeanor, the Line-Of-People- Practicing-To-Be-A-Parking-Lot. Next to it, of course, is the Line-Of- People-Intent-On-Breaking-The-Current-Land-Speed-Record. That is the line I must merge into if I don't want to be forced to take the exit which will deposit me somewhere so impossible to escape from that I might as well buy a house and start a new family there.
Usually I only manage to merge onto the LOPIOBTCLSR lane by throwing a dollar out the window, which eventually draws the attention of an executive or banker who hasn't screwed people out of enough money during the day and is feeling anemic (in a monetary sense). They then slide to a screeching halt to scramble for that dollar and I am able to launch myself into the lane just ahead of the drivers swerving around them with such reckless violence that its almost artistic. Kind of like if Sam Peckinpah were directing a movie where people were killing each other with cars instead of guns. Only everyone kept missing each other.
Where was I. Ah yes. Now, eventually, even the land speed lane will be forced to slow down for the throngs of drivers who must hate their home lives because they are obviously intent on turning a fifteen minute commute into three days. They would drive backwards if they could.
At that point, there is only one lane left. The fast lane. The Lane of the Apocalypse. The lane only the truly and clinically insane drivers will take on. In this lane, drivers attempt to do a combination of the other two lanes. That's right, its the Line-Of-Drivers-Intent-On-Breaking- The-Land-Speed-Record-While-Careening-Along-Two-Centimeters-Behind -The-Driver-In-Front-Of-Them.
This is the lane where my nerves usually fail me and I am soon hurled back into the other lanes, a quivering jelly of ruined nerves and undershorts, hands shaking and soaked with sweat until I at last pull into my driveway.
There, my wife greets me with a kiss and says, "How are you?"
"Oh, just another day," I usually fail to say and instead unleash an unholy barrage of verbiage very similar to that which you have just read.
At least you got the PG version.
Before you ask, no, there is no safe and viable way to deal with the seven million people trying to block me from getting on the highway every day after work.
I exaggerate sometimes.
Oh sure, you think I'm exaggerating, but frankly I think that's a grossly conservative estimate. I've seen Iowa, Arkansas, and Nebraska plates, and even Kansas and Missouri plates from counties, get this, nowhere near the Kansas City area. Clearly, people are coming from hundreds of miles away to keep me from merging into heavy traffic that I don't want to be in anyway.
I used to do what most of you I'm sure thought would be the logical way to approach the problem. And that would be: swerve from a dead stop in front of 18-wheelers going 80 miles an hour piloted by Guatemalan housewives who haven't slept for nine days and are just starting their periods, drive at speeds a fighter jet would get pulled over for, and tailgate the poor sap in front of you so closely there is iminent danger of automotive intercourse taking place.
You know you do it, people. And when none of that barbaric behavior gets you anywhere, you shake your fist and shriek bloody murder at everything from drivers going three miles an hour in front of you and letting the whole of motorized civilization in front of them, to idle construction workers at the side of the road who laugh and point at random things, to people talking on their cell phones while trying to slide over to an exit they missed ten minutes ago.
But now I do things differently. First I roll along a lane that will soon merge with a ravine, waiting for the 79 people on cell phones in the lane next to me to notice I'm there and slide up tightly so I can't get in. If by some miracle I can squeeze between two people who are probably distracted by a second call or dialing for pizza delivery, I next face, calmly now with my new traffic demeanor, the Line-Of-People- Practicing-To-Be-A-Parking-Lot. Next to it, of course, is the Line-Of- People-Intent-On-Breaking-The-Current-Land-Speed-Record. That is the line I must merge into if I don't want to be forced to take the exit which will deposit me somewhere so impossible to escape from that I might as well buy a house and start a new family there.
Usually I only manage to merge onto the LOPIOBTCLSR lane by throwing a dollar out the window, which eventually draws the attention of an executive or banker who hasn't screwed people out of enough money during the day and is feeling anemic (in a monetary sense). They then slide to a screeching halt to scramble for that dollar and I am able to launch myself into the lane just ahead of the drivers swerving around them with such reckless violence that its almost artistic. Kind of like if Sam Peckinpah were directing a movie where people were killing each other with cars instead of guns. Only everyone kept missing each other.
Where was I. Ah yes. Now, eventually, even the land speed lane will be forced to slow down for the throngs of drivers who must hate their home lives because they are obviously intent on turning a fifteen minute commute into three days. They would drive backwards if they could.
At that point, there is only one lane left. The fast lane. The Lane of the Apocalypse. The lane only the truly and clinically insane drivers will take on. In this lane, drivers attempt to do a combination of the other two lanes. That's right, its the Line-Of-Drivers-Intent-On-Breaking- The-Land-Speed-Record-While-Careening-Along-Two-Centimeters-Behind -The-Driver-In-Front-Of-Them.
This is the lane where my nerves usually fail me and I am soon hurled back into the other lanes, a quivering jelly of ruined nerves and undershorts, hands shaking and soaked with sweat until I at last pull into my driveway.
There, my wife greets me with a kiss and says, "How are you?"
"Oh, just another day," I usually fail to say and instead unleash an unholy barrage of verbiage very similar to that which you have just read.
At least you got the PG version.
Before you ask, no, there is no safe and viable way to deal with the seven million people trying to block me from getting on the highway every day after work.
I exaggerate sometimes.
posted by JohnR at
11:42 PM
0 Comments
