Honk If You Hate People

Day 21 of the Temporary Prison Work Relocation.

I fear that I have been lulled into a sense of complacency. My daily commute had become tolerable as I learned to eat my feelings into submission navigate the daily obstacles of trying to arrive at the place where they pay me. This, despite the fact that the blocked off lanes on 15th Street seem to change from the left to the right and back to the left on a daily basis, and despite the fact that I’m never in the correct lane for that when I overtake the “Warning Left Lane is Closed Today But Tomorrow It Might Be The Other One Or We Might Just Block Off The Whole Street With Orange Barrels Sans Notification” sign and then said sign is only five feet from where I have to actually maneuver an entire vehicle into the next lane lest I become a giant red, steel bowling ball knocking down orange-striped pins. I still felt I had the commute thingy down.

I was wrong. So, so, so wrong.

It started off quite normally as I dropped the boy off at his school in time to catch the bus to the Tech campus. If I hit that sweet spot between 7:00-7:10 a.m., I can hop on the expressway and expect less traffic, thus facilitating a mere twenty minute drive to my destination. I had plenty of time this morning to hit up the QT for coffee that doesn’t taste like the black tar they are repaving 15th street with, which is what is coming out of the Amazon-delivered cheap plastic coffee makers they have provided us for our temporary stay on the ninth floor.

We can tell the difference between this and the Commercial Keurig machine we had previously. Don’t kid yourselves into thinking we can’t. I’m pretty sure the water torture method was based on watching a cheap-ass coffee maker brew a mound of dark coffee in fifty minutes or less. Or maybe it just felt like fifty minutes because I’m used to popping in a pod and having a cup of life-saving java in about thirty seconds.

And it doesn’t taste like shit. It tastes like McCafe in my McCup and it keeps me from McKilling people who piss me off by saying things like “Good Morning.” Or it tastes like Dunkin and keeps me from Dunkin someone’s head under water or Dunkin my foot up their asses when they speak to me before 9:00 a.m.

But I digress.

I hit up QT and got my daily don’t-get-arrested-juice, got myself a nice tasty jalapeño sausage roll, and I patted myself on the back when I beat the flashing yellow traffic arrow of death to get on the expressway. Everything cruised along well for about two minutes. Then all I saw was a wall of red brake lights.

And then we sat.

It was stop and go. But mostly stop.

Good thing I peed at QT.

That’s when I heard it.

At first, I couldn’t make out what the sound was. Was it a siren? Was there an accident ahead that required an emergency vehicle? I turned down Metallica, which may or may not have been turned up at full volume, and I cocked my head to listen.

There it was again. A horn. A car horn.

I started whipping my head around to see who was honking. Was somebody getting attacked??? Was somebody having an emergency and trying to get other commuters’ attention???

No.

My eyes came to rest on the vehicle beside me.

It was not an emergency.

It was a douchebag who was laying on his horn and screaming, “COME ON! HURRY UP! LET’S GO!” He was enunciating well because I could read his lips, and I’m horrible at that. He kept doing it. Laying on the horn and screaming.

I’m pretty sure I stared at him like this for a full five minutes.

I mean…what in the fuck was he actually accomplishing? Did he really think honking his horn was going to make two thousand cars in front of him drive faster? Did he think those drivers were going to suddenly say, “Oh fuck. I’m in this guy’s way! Let me move over!“

Like what in the actual commuter hell did he think honking was going to do???

And yet, he did it for the two miles that took us twenty minutes to traverse.

Amazing.

I rolled into work a full forty-five minutes after leaving the QT in Broken Arrow. My sausage roll was cold. My coffee was lukewarm. My patience was dangerously thin.

And then I watched them wash the outside of the windows.

ON THE NINTH EFFING FLOOR.

I wasn’t even out there and my palms got sweaty. That’s when my morning was put into perspective and I realized I could be doing THAT today.

Of course, they could be dealing with the shit storm I have going on now too.

I guess it’s all about which turd-wrangling rodeo you get dealt in life. Oh well…

Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring.