In Which Your Faithful Narrator Discusses Traffic

Yesterday, as I was driving home from work contemplating life and my place in it (all the while listening to Pink Floyd's The Final Cut) I got tied up in a bit of a traffic jam. Traffic was moving, but slowly. Whenever I get into those situations, my first thought is the opening credits to Office Space and I look for a guy pushing a walker I can race. Alas, there was no one pushing a walker, so that fantasy was dashed upon the rocks of reality rather quickly.

As the traffic slowed to a turtle crawl I became a bit impatient. I'm not a road-ragie kind of driver. I don't flip people off if they cut me off, I might curse a little, but I'm not a guy that acts out, its just not worth it, but I wanted to get home. I had had one of those days at work that makes work a bit unbearable, I was tired, and a bit irascible, in short, I had rather have been anywhere but in my car in a slow traffic pattern.

I found myself tucked in between 18-wheelers: one on my right, one in front and one behind. And since I drive a little Cobalt, that can be a rather uncomfortable position to be in, I feel like I'm a small bug amongst very large feet.

I had an opportunity to look at the back end of the semi in front of me and I realized something: the back end of the semi has a fairly large metal bar that hangs down about a foot or so. It is obviously a step to help said trucker get into the backend of his truck, but I realized that that strip of metal is also low enough to keep the frontend of my car from going under the truck. That just stuck me as very utilitarian and made me feel very grateful, I'm not entirely sure why, though.

Then there was the rubbernecker part of me. When I get into slow downs on the highway like that, I secretly hope to find mangled cars and drama on the side of the road, but then I quickly feel guilty (as well I should) and hope that its just road construction, but still... in the dark part of my mind that I don't like to think about I hope...

After about fifteen-minutes of slow going I finally came upon the cause of the slow down. It was in fact an accident and it might of been a bad one, but I couldn't really see (which was alright). I just hit the gas and drove on home.