Traffic School

Okay, so I've tried to avoid this topic for months now. It's just so cliche. Before you know it I'm gonna start ranting on about the weather (Insanely sunny. Is there anything worse than bright sun first thing in the morning? (No.)) and/or how boring work is (you have no idea).

Oh well.

For the love of God, are all the drivers in Dallas sharing one collective brain? And is that brain the size of a small walnut? And is that brain always thinking about boys instead of watching the damn road? I know Dallas is a moderately big city. And that there are a lot of people here. There's bound to be accidents, and resulting traffic jams. I can deal.

But seriously people, when neither of those things exist, the highway is a place where you go fast. Rapid transit from point A to B, C, D, and beyond by ingenious design. It is not a place to decide that 45mph is God's designated speed limit and that you must convert every other car out there to your will. (There's an extended metaphor available here about Jehova's Witnesses, cars, and the highway but I don't think I have the literary skills to pull it off.) And this totally means you too, Mr. Police Guy Who Was In Front of Me on the Way to Work Today. I don't care if you have a shiny, pretty, able-to-flash light on top of your car, the actual speed limit is still your friend.

Last night on the way home from work it had rained pretty hard about 20 minutes beforehand and it was still sprinkling when I got on the highway. Traffic proceeded to move at 19mph the entire way to my exit. (The one thing keeping my sanity mostly intact is that my actual highway route home is only 4.3 miles long.) When I get to the salvation that is my turning lane, I speed up to get the hell off the Highway of Doom, Slowness, and the Occasional Ugly Couch (HDSOUC). As I'm heading off, I look over. There is no problem on the HDSOUC as far as I can see, and that's at least for the next 3 exits. These people just feel the urge to go 19 miles per hour, for their health, enjoyment, and the love of tormenting me. There are huge gaps in the traffic ahead. It is roughly 7 cars, apparently filled with people channeling sloths, doped up on morphine, and/or under water, that are keeping the traffic going at this pace.

That is not healthy for my rage.

Because when I am alone in the TOM (Or, for that matter, with friends and family. It don't mean a thing to me.) in addition to rocking out to the music on the radio, I develop a mouth like a longshoreman and will rant and rave at everyone from teenagers to nuns and the elderly. Anyone who feels the need to cut me off, or go slow, or, heck, mildly annoys me with their selection of car color (Who the hell buys a lime green PT Cruiser? Someone who should die, that's who.). My anger knows no bounds inside the TOM (Motto: "Where no one can hear your insults.").

I think it was brilliant advanced planning on my part to have preemptively not bought a gun to keep under the passenger side seat. Well, that and the fact that guns scare the bejesus out of me. Although I'm pretty sure I could get over that fear upon the 3rd time some church van merged into traffic in front of me going 30mph down Highway 75.

So that's that. Learn a lesson from your Uncle Jason: Don't incur my wrath. Especially on the highway. Or I might. . . seethe and call you names. . . from the inside of my TOM. . . where you can't hear.

Sigh. Leave me alone.