Traffic Woes

There are very few things in this world that turn me into a complete nutcase. In fact, I credit myself with the ability to remain calm in the middle of a humungous shitstorm. I’ve done event where major things have gone wrong, but I never lose my cool. To date the only things that drive me up a wall is my daughter’s whining and my husband asking me the same question for the millionth time. That all changed at the beginning of the week when I discovered a new form of torture the likes of which would make Abu Gharib look like a drunken frat party: Seattle traffic.

It was early Monday morning, way too early, and I had to be at The Facility for the enriching and interesting orientation program. It started at 8:00 a.m. and was in a small town near the SeaTac International Airport. Fortunately I live just ten miles away from the airport, so my commute should have only been 20 minutes max. In an ideal world where my house is never dirty and I could attend a birthday party without thinking about cake the whole time, this would have been true, but we don’t live in that wonderful fantasy world, we live in a cruel world congested with gas-sucking automobiles. On this particular morning as I left the house at 7:15 a.m. under the illusion that I had plenty of time, all of those aforementioned autos were in front of me, and were going an average of five miles per hour.

I headed down the hill to try and get on the highway, but the line began just as I hit the breaks easing into the steep grade. For the next couple of days I referred to this moment as “joining the lineup”. It would take ten minutes just to get down one fucking little hill, and on that early Monday morning, I was a half an hour late. That’s right; I left my house with 45 minutes to get to a destination that was ten miles away and I was 30 minutes late. We never discussed this problem in Algebra, and even if we did, I was too busy flirting with the cute guy that sat directly in front of me, so I wouldn’t have been listening anyway.

The second day I decided to be wiser. I left at 7:05 a.m., and took the secret back route that only I knew. Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized that during my two year retirement when I stayed home to watch Rachael, other people, evil commuters, had discovered my super secret route and were now using it without my permission. I was only 15 minutes late on Tuesday, which was an improvement, but still quite irritating.

The final day of orientation, I left at 7:00 a.m. straight up, and was only five minutes late. Fortunately, when I arrived at my permanent place of work, I discovered that the only person in my department who reported to work at 8:00 a.m. was the guy who lives within walking distance. Thursday I was able to leave at 8:30 a.m. and make it to work early, and that trip from my house included me dropping my smelly dog off at the groomer.

The difference in just traveling one hour later saved me 40-60 minutes. I should be happy about this, but frankly I am extremely puzzled. I am as perplexed about this traffic conundrum as I was the first time someone told me that he was dumping me, because he loved me too much. What kind of fucked up place do I live in that ten miles done at one hour equals 60 minutes, whereas ten miles done that very 60 minutes later equal 20 minutes? The sick, sad thing is not the complexity of the space/time continuum involved with the mass particle transfers known as traffic, it’s that I’m thinking way too hard about it when I should be concentrating on something more important like if we should take a road trip up to Vancouver, B.C. this weekend.

Seattle has many things going for it, but unfortunately the county Seattle resides in is run by a bunch of corrupt fuckheads who would rather use their political power to make money and advance their careers instead of doing something legitimately helpful for the citizenry. Why doesn’t Seattle have a decent mass transit system, that’s the 3 billion dollar question. Actually, it was 3 billion dollars, until this asshole they hired to oversee the monorail project that would have made this city run better, fucked with the numbers, now it’s up to 11 billion. Thankfully, they fired his ass, but now the mass transit system that should have been in place ten years ago is on hold indefinitely.

Much like all of those Hollywood shitheads thinking that Jews know some sort of secret to unlocking the universe, and its called Kabbalah, traffic will never be something I completely understand. I may not be able to get from my house to the airport at 8:00 a.m. in less than 60 minutes, but at least I don’t have to. I can just kick back until 8:30 a.m., leave the house in peace and avoid the dreaded lineup.