Below you will find a list of tasks that I have completed while in traffic. This whole thing came about when I was telling a friend about my commute to work. She told me that "driving forty minutes one way for work is not something that you should be used to.” After talking to her I realized that I was not phased by such a commute, and never really had been. However, I did notice that I began to do absurd things to avoid driving during prime traffic hours, like finding the nearest Goodwill and walking through there to avoid the metered on-ramps. Or going to my new favorite coffee shop at 4:30pm to grab a cup of coffee because it’s so convenient and totally on the way home, and obviously coffee at 4:30pm will not keep me up all night. So, said friend challenged me to keep track of all of the things that I was doing while in traffic. So, of course I accepted the challenge, and as you can see some are more productive than others. I would highly recommend creating your own list if you are driving on any major highway, ever.

1. Sing "Firework" three times after promptly seeing a plastic bag roll across the freeway

2. Successfully flipping through all of the FM.. and AM radio stations 13 times

3. Grabbing a random CD out of the center console and playing it only to be reminded that this was the CD you made when you broke up with your high school boyfriend

4. Panic about what will happen if I run out of gas. On several occasions.

5. See a beautiful double rainbow after a downpour

6. Constantly think about how hungry I am

7. Play peek-a-boo with the baby in the car next to me

8. Throw up angry gestures and have other commuters laugh at me

9. Think about how awesome it is that I even have a job to be sitting in traffic for

10. Wonder why all of the cars are merging into the left lane only to find out that I'm THAT person that has to merge at the last second because they don't know what's going on

11. Narrate anything and everything, including the dog who is licking the window two lanes over

12. Realize that I spend more time with my car than anyone else on this planet

13. Start to wonder if riding the 30 miles on your bike might actually be faster