Traffic—it happens to the best of us. There’s morning traffic when everyone just happens to leave their homes at the same. exact. time. There’s rush hour from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. every weeknight when everyone just happens to leave their offices at the same. exact. time. Then there's traffic right when we decide to head out to a concert/movie/sports game/etc and everyone decides to go to the same. exact. place.
We’re all on the road waiting for the light to turn, to tell us it’s our glorious turn to go.
In our 9-to-5 society, traffic is just part of life. It happens whether we are stuck in it or not. It’s that time of day everyone dreads. We wake up early enough to put ourselves together for work only for tons of other cars to greet us on the road. We sit through eight hours of work, looking forward to the clock striking five, only to sit through an extra hour on the road.
Let's all just take a deep breath: in...out.... we will make it out of this. In 40 to 65 minutes we will be free. We will not have to stare at the taillights in front us. We will not have to listen to the thumping beats from the car beside us. We will not have to keep our foot on the brakes this long. We will go go go go go go go. But for now, we wait.
Sometimes, we think we can avoid it: leaving the house at 7:15 a.m. instead of 7:20 a.m. or leaving work a bit earlier. Sometimes, it works! Sometimes, we get to work ten minutes early and we take our time walking in. Sometimes, we maneuver around the cars and take a different route and make it home to kick off our shoes and relax.
Other times, it’s like traffic knows. Traffic watches us as we leave our houses and waits for us at the meter on the highway. Traffic lives for us to change the radio station every time Cheerleader plays over the course of our hour-long commute. Traffic feasts when someone cuts us off and we shake our heads. Traffic loves when we grip the wheel, hoping for the light to just turn green already, dammit! And we can’t do anything about it.We just sit there and take it. We sit and think about how much we hate this and how much we can’t wait to get out of this traffic and how much we would rather be somewhere else. Anywhere else than this bumper-to-bumper traffic. Then–when it’s finally over, there’s relief.
Until we have to do it all over again.
