In the Trenches: On Commuting and...OMG THAT GUY JUST CUT ME OFF

I swear to god, if I have to flip the bird one more time, I’m going to jab that middle finger of mine straight through my eye socket and into my brain, where I will hopefully damage my frontal cortex, thus erasing all memory of this stupid commute with these stupid drivers on this stupid Tuesday morning.

But let me back up for a moment.

I long ago (well, about 4 years ago, to be precise) resigned myself to the fate of a daily commuter. I have conceded the fact that twice a day, five days a week, I will be throwing myself, properly encapsulated in glass, steel, and moving engine-type parts, into a frenzy of other encapsulated individuals, all of us trying to get to our destinations on time, many of us (them) attempting to do so while smoking, talking on the phone, reading the paper, eating breakfast, and (horror of horrors) applying make-up. It’s a true recipe for disaster. And I quickly learned, those short 4 years ago, that this ritual would include and exercise in patience and anger management bordering on inhuman. Or should I say, inhumane, as this daily routine has stripped us all, myself included, bare of ours most virtuous attributes; humility, forgiveness, empathy, etc.

I’ve had all sorts of commutes. I’ve had short commutes, consisting of three turns executed within a 30-second timespan. I’ve had long commutes, where getting from point A to point B within an hour is only achieved with a little luck, the grace of God, and maybe a pint of beer or two to loosen the ole’ accelerator a bit . I’ve had windy commutes through tangles of back roads and parking lots, and commutes that were so straight and uncomplicated that drowsy driving became a paramount concern. What all these commutes had in common, what is the unifying component of all commuters in all the countries in all of the world, is a sense of urgency, negativity, and stress, all jumbled into an angsty package, hurling down the highway at 85 mph.

And if this equation wasn’t bad enough, allow me to throw in the wild card: crappy, oblivious, selfish, borderline-retarded, ass-hat drivers.

You know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s that stupid, manicured, highlighted stay-at-home wife, careening between lanes on her SUV while on the phone, gossiping about her pilates instructor’s husband’s secretary. It’s that __(insert race or ethnicity here)__ driver who insists on going 10 miles under the speed limit, clutching the steering wheel white-kunckled, leaning so far forward that his or her breath is condensing on the windshield. It’s that businessman in his BMW who’s taking a conference call through his earpiece (*snicker) who cuts you off because he’s obviously more important than you and is on his way to another important place to do important things and you should just be lucky that he’s sharing HIS highway with you. It’s that Mac truck driver (true story folks) who couldn’t be bothered to do something as cliché as, say, check his side-view mirror to make sure there isn’t a red Subaru Impreza in his blind spot before merging left and FORCING THIS CAR INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC AT 7:30 IN THE FREAKIN’ MORNING.

I have 50 more examples of these drivers, and I have no doubt that you would nod your head in agreement at each one. We’ve all seen them. We’ve all narrowly escaped potential accident after potential accident, all the while screaming and cursing and festering in the unfairness of it all. But what can be done? We daydream of grenade launchers and flame throwers and spring-mounted, oversized boxing gloves and jimmy-rigged bullhorns, but at the end of the day, the only things we’re left with are our lungs and cultural hand gestures. These are my weapons against the low browed, moronic masses I encounter Monday through Friday, 8:10-8:45am and again at 5:00-5:35pm. So I will use them. I will curse their parents and wish plagues of pox on their children and conjure demons to haunt their dreams, all the while exercising my right, as an American, to flip the bird. I am the Administrator of Road Justice, and I will pass judgment on whomever I please.

Am I proud of who I’ve become? No, not really. I’m not particularly pleased that I mutter “somebody better be dead” when my drive grinds to a standstill due to an accident. And I certainly don’t advertise the fact that when I finally pass an agonizingly slow driver who brakes every 50 feet, I take a good look in the window and more often than not think, “well, THAT explains it.” But you know what? It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. It’s 8:35 and I’m running late and I haven’t had my coffee yet and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. When I’m retired, I plan to be an accommodating, yielding, stay-with-the-flow-of-traffic kind of driver. In the meantime, get the hell out of my way, because I have to hurry up and go to a place that I don’t particularly want to go to do a job that I don’t particularly want to do. It’s the American dream, folks, and I’m living it.