This Krusty Wants Out

 

There’s times when I wish I had a button for the Omega-13. If I could only go back thirteen seconds to change my mind and take the other road… today I got stuck in traffic for fifteen minutes and let me just tell you, I wanted none of it.

Sure, some of you are probably like 15min? That’s it? I must be soft… Damn straight. I’ve gotten pampered by the fifteen minute drive to campus that is on local roads, not on the highway, with only moderate traffic that although thick with vehicles keeps moving at a steady pace of 35-40 mph.

I’m not going to lie, that’s the best commute I’ve ever had. Certainly better than any commute I had while stationed in either Mayport, FL or Norfolk, VA when I was active duty Navy. Holy cow that was some RIDICULOUS traffic–and at the butt crack of dawn too! That’s just not right.

So I’m sitting in this 15 minute jam and the only thing I have surmised is that in that 3 lane stretch, 90% of the people in all 3 lanes wanted in that left most lane to turn onto the parkway. Well, guess what, people? NOBODY knows that–and just cause you’re stopped dead in the middle of your lane with no regard to the cars moving forward ahead of you or the cars you have blocked behind you–until you employ your turn signal, people aren’t going to just let you in, probably because you come off as stupid and a douche.

People were driving all kinds of stupid and all I wanted was to keep going straight and make it past this hellish intersection and drive on the stretch of road I could see just beyond the overpass with cars driving at a smooth clip. I was trapped in between cars that were all trying to make lefts from the right lanes.

Like the clown trapped in the runaway monorail–this Krusty wants out!

This would have been the perfect time to deploy the Omega-13. Why? Because just before I was trapped in this snarl I experienced a sense of foreboding, and could have should have taken a side street that would have gotten me off the main road and a little out of the way, but avoided the intersection with the tollway.

But NO. I ignored by gut feeling, hence the next 15min to drive a 2 block distance.

Lesson learned from this experience? When driving east around “rush hour” AVOID all roads that intersect with the tollway as their traffic patterns make people go soft in the head.

I will enjoy my short commute to class while it lasts. I’m due to change campuses by next semester, and I’ll be stuck driving the highway like all the other chumps in the morning. *sigh* I may just bite the bullet and plan my schedule around taking the train for that distance because I just don’t see myself enjoying that potential traffic at all… been there, done that. I want less stress in my life, not more!