It's a Good Day

I've got the morning commute down to a science. Get on the blasted 405 in stop-and-go traffic, stay to the right for a few exits, cut through the half-cloverleaf offramps on a couple of 'em without exiting, then do a hard-over to the number one lane until things loosen up and the rest is a pleasure cruise. Notice I don't call it the "fast lane", since that concept hasn't applied to Southern California freeways since 1983.

Now, I'm not a full-on road rager, but I do take exception to people wasting my time with their cluelessness. It's frustrating to no end when traffic lightens up and the car in front of you, which is doing a responsible 20 MPH in bumper-to-bumper conditions, cranks it all the way up to 45 when every other lane is -BAM!- up to 75.

So this morning I was quite proud of myself for not getting into a situation that would have driven me through the roof. A 20 year old Lincoln, replete with sagging headliner, patches of bondo, and other evidences of half-assed body repairs, is cutting across lanes, one at a time, in an effort to join me in the leftmost lane. In these cases, I usually cast glance to see if there is multiple passengers in the car, figuring they need to get into the HOV lane, so I let 'em over. It's the civil thing to do. But in this case I see just the driver, a rather WT looking dyed-platinum female who, if I had to speculate, was a chain smoker, dressed in office attire. I was already doing about 50, so I pick up the pace a bit to discourage her from cutting in front of me. No problem, it worked, no contention. She merged behind me without incident.

Then I notice what made my day. As the pace increased across all lanes and all those around me were getting it up to 70, I look in my rear-view to see the Lincoln straining to get going any faster than 55 - this, and a trail of visible exhaust behind it, followed by a line of other cars with their right-turn signal on. There, but for the grace of God, went me. I turned my sights forward and sped on contentedly.

I guess the point to all this is that we need to take the time to notice when things aren't as bad as the could be. So the next time things are going pretty crappy for you, just be glad that you're not stuck behind some WT bimbos' slow moving Lincoln sucking fumes.

Have a super day!