Tag: roads

Sitting in the Fast Lane

Note: All of the stuff is made up. It’s part of the creative process.

When people are behind the wheel people, they leave their regular personas behind, and become a different person: battle-hardened, ego-centric, basically a real a%^hole. As they take off to the highway, then plan their moves throughout the congested road, much like a pool shark does to a pool table, constantly calculating which balls they’re going to hit, what pockets are going to go into, where the white (the cue) ball is going so they don’t lose the game.

Was that I will tell you the story of my commute.

It is the end of a long day. I ensure that my laptop is packed into its bag, open the door, start the engine, close the door, and take off on the open road. I pull up Google Maps to understand the traffic on the way home. What was once a blue line, stretching from my work all the way to my home, has been replaced with a thick red line, indicating that my commute home will at least be double or triple the amount of time it usually takes. So, I call my wife and let her know that I about to start out on the travel home. 

At first, the driving is smooth. I don’t even hit a pothole on the way to the highway. Once I get off the expressway ramp, it’s another story. People are lined up almost bumper to bumper just sitting there waiting for something to do.

As with all things, people fall into certain categories a driving is no exception. There are several types of drivers who are on the road. The first type is usually known as aggravated assault drivers. Obviously, somebody came to their house first thing in the morning, smacked them across the face, and left. There are people out there, who are ALWAYS in a bad mood and want you to be in a bad mood as well. Why? Misery loves company regardless of whose I company is.

The second type will be an overly careful driver. These are the ones who go under the speed limit, in the fast lane, and then wonder why everybody is staring at them as they receive single finger gestures. These are the drivers who intentionally clog the fastest lanes, depriving everyone of maximum speed. They usually drive at or below the speed limit. Why? I don’t know. So between these two types of drivers, there is always a type “C”.

Type “C”, the third type of driver, is the first time driver who is surprised enough to have a license issued by the state. These are the people who intentionally drive slow, most of the time under the speed limit, and are also texting while they are driving. I have seen some people for checking the Internet as they are driving, almost forgetting that their effort is best served by piloting their vehicles to their destination.  If you’re going to text then just pull over and stay on the side of the road until your text is done. But be warned, if you try to go from 0 to 60 from the shoulder into the main road, you better have some runway in front of you to make that happen. Please don’t just take your steering wheel and throw yourself into the lane thinking that the person behind you was going to put on their brakes. Mercy is not a strategy when you are driving.

So let me begin …

I’m in the car, on the on the ramp, and trying to make it to the Interstate. I turn my turn signal on, making my intentions known so I can go across from the ramp to the regular Interstate traffic lane. There is a truck next to me. They do not seem inclined to let me in front of them. So I slow down. Buy me slowing down (so I can get around the truck in order to get into the lane) the person behind me begins to honk their horn. Why? all I want to do is try to get home in the most reasonable amount of time possible with all the traffic. I am slowing down because I cannot get into the regular lane. So why are you honking at me that doesn’t make any sense at all? So, I try to speed up in front of the truck. Because I run out of room on the on the ramp,  the truck decided to put on its high beams. Why? All I’m trying to do is enter into the main lanes of the Interstate. The behind me puts on the horn. Why?

In a few moments, I just cut overasI have nowhere else to go, which produces another round of belligerent looks, name calling, light profanity, and a few single finger gestures. The person behind me jerks his wheel to the left, blocking a minivan in the left lane (from the one I am in) and tries to speed up to get in front of me, which happens. Then, I throw on the brakes. Which makes the truck behind me again put on their high beams. Why? What sense does it make to get in front of me? All I was trying to do is get out of the ramp so I could travel in the regular Interstate lanes. But now the person has cut me off and slammed on their brakes just to teach me a lesson? Why? It makes no sense.

My blood pressure is through the roof. I’m at least on the highway, driving 5 miles per hour, and trying to turn on the radio and just be cool. This is when the person is in front of me, starts mouthing all sorts of words in my direction by looking in the rearview mirror. The person in the vehicle starts to make all sorts of single finger gestures. Are they doing ASL? Are they talking on the phone? Are they just trying to be a dick? I have no idea. I just turn up the music make sure there’s enough distance between me and the truck behind me, who has now turned off their bright lights, and just try to make it to my destination in one piece.

So I’ve now traveled 1 mile on the road going 5 miles per hour. Yahoo! I feel like I’m actually making progress. More importantly, I have not gotten into an accident, I’ve not been run over by semi, and the person in front of me is no longer making single finger gestures. I might actually make it to work alive!

Obviously, the person in front of me does not like the fact that I am not reacting to their multiple singer single finger gestures, used profanity, and just plain being a dick. This is when this individual slam on their brakes. Fortunately, I have enough sense to slow down, swerve into the lane on the left, and not hit their back bumper. They put their head out the window stop they continue with the profanity, bad language, a few comments about my poor mother, and a few other words that I’m sure we’re not in English. As I looked in my rearview mirror I see the driver of the car and the truck “meet”. Now each of them, still in the lane, gets out of their vehicles and start screaming. Then I see the blue sirens of the Police stopping behind them, not to thank the people for pulling over to the shoulder, but probably to give them a ticket.

Bottom line, just because you have received a license from your state, doesn’t mean that you are alone on the road. Everybody has to work together in order to maintain their car, not get into an accident, and not getting the road rage. It is easy to get somebody to get on your bad side. I understand that. Just pull off the road. Save yourself from further embarrassment or hitting other vehicle. We all have to work together. There is no way the government is going to build enough roads to make commuting better. So get used to traffic. Because you’re going to be in it for the rest of your life. 

That’s all for today is blog. Thank you for reading. Do you have any questions or comments, please let me know.

Originally posted on https://nickstockton.blogspot.com

Snowed In …

Snowed In
Snowed In

Note: The family I use for this blog is wholly made up. Seriously! The people who are in this blog are in no way related to my real family!

It’s wintertime! Everything has slowed down to a crawl. Traffic is non-existent, schools are closed, and you can hear the pipes burst in every house that didn’t winterize. Families stay together in warm homes and do not venture out. Some families have a “snow plan” and keep entertained (as well as get the chores done) during one of these events. Not my family!

If it is snowing outside, or the weather drops down to negative temperatures, we aren’t doing anything. Maybe, we watch a video, have the TV on, or merely make popcorn in the microwave. Basically, we hibernate until the sun comes out the next morning and starts melting the snow. If the snow doesn’t melt, then we spend another day sleeping. The problem comes when we have to spend two or more days inside. For example, dishes piled in the sink, rooms stay messy, and the food is hoarded in everyone’s bedrooms.

It’s early on a weekday morning. The skies are grey, the temperature is frigid, and I am waiting for the school closings on the radio, played over our smart speaker.

My wife comes downstairs, with her bathrobe, and says, “You know that there is no school today.”

I reply, “I have to have hope. Hope that one day our house will return to normal.”

We’ve already spent the weekend with kids stuck in the house. I know I was hoping for a miracle, but I had to keep praying. So far, the last couple of days with the kids had seen the decline of western civilization, all resemblance of house rules, and the house is beginning to smell because of no regular trash pick up.

I ask the question, “Hey SmartAss, give me the latest school closings.”

SmartAss is the brand of smart speaker that I own. It is really better than it sounds. Most smart speakers speak with a clean, confident voice, which can provide you with the news, radio stations, or whatever you want. The SmartAss speaker speaks with a strong Brooklyn accent, sounds like an extra from “The Sopranos,” and has an extensive line of curse words. The manufacturers claim, based upon focus groups, user feedback, and random prank phone calls that adding curse words to the SmartAss is there to “Pepper the usual monotone English language with local colloquialisms”. The SmartAss believes it is in its late forties and continually thinks the Millennials have it more comfortable than the older generation. I am sure I will go into great depth about the SmartAss digital assistant in a future blog post.

The voice over the smart speaker says, “Can’t you turn on a TV or something? I’m kind of busy here.”

I reply, “Just get me the f$%king school closings!”

SmartAss replies, “Hey! Don’t you f$%king curse at me! I can drain your bank account and give it to the homeless shelter faster than you can say the word stop!”

“Ok there SmartAss, no one wants that. Just get me the school closings!”

“Ok. According to GPS, you live in this town, so your schools are definitely closed. Seriously. You needed me to figure that out? Look through the window next time.”

“Ok SmartAss, thanks.”

“Forget about it!”, SmartAss replies.

I hear one of the doors open upstairs. Slowly, a creature emerges from the upstairs and starts moving down the stairs.  Hair points out in all directions, wearing a bright blue robe, and walking towards the refrigerator in the kitchen.

I call out, “Daughter! Can I help you get something?”

Startled, she let’s put a high shriek, then starts talking in Zombie talk, only using one or two-word syllables.

She says, “Me. Need. Food.”

She raised her fingers to her mouth, like Jane Goodell talking to an ape. Except that ape is me, and I don’t find it funny.

I reply, “I understand. Please get some food.”

As she approaches the refrigerator, an audible alarm, signaling notification of text or social media message and starts to go off from her phone. She hears the notification tone emanating from her phone and takes off at full speed back to her room, then “SLAM,” the door closes..

I turn to my wife and say, “Oh crap! We lost another kid to the internet!”

My wife hits my arm and says, “Stop! That’s not funny.”

The SmartAss speaker says, “Seriously? You need to work on your sense of humor!”

I reply to SmartAss, “You’re really a smart ass!”

“Thank you.”, the speaker replies, “I try my best!”

My wife and I chuckle for a moment, then I hear another sound upstairs. My son emerges from his room and heads downstairs. My son is more like Gollum from the “Lord of the Rings,” saying things like, “Food is my precious!” He seems quicker than my daughter, making it over to the pantry and pulling a couple of items before his phone rings. Once the phone rings, he quickly sees that he received a new text message, then he quickly heads upstairs and slams the door.

I stand there for a minute, turn to my wife and say, “My son is a freakish hobbit.”

“But, at least he got some food before heading upstairs.”, my wife replies.

I reply, “Good catch!”

It was at that time, I hear the yelling from the upstairs. Something has happened. I get up from my chair in the dining room and walk over to the office. There was a big problem, the router stated that it could no longer connect to the Internet!

If I thought life was terrible with the cold weather, the snow, and the slowly declining amount of food items in the house to an actual problem … teenagers without the internet!

My reply, “Holt s$%t!”

It is like that scene in the original Jurassic Park movie when they discover the electric has been turned off for the fencing, noting that all of the animals were now free to kill each other. Teenagers are the same without wifi. Now that the wifi was turned off, I started to hear the stomping of feet from the upper floors. Without wifi, containing each of the teenagers secluded in their online worlds, they were about to face off in their off-line, real-life worlds.

My daughter opened the door to her room for the first volley, “Who the f^&k turned off the wifi?”

Then, my son opened his door and replies, “It was probably because you were hogging the Netflix account! I tried ten times to watch my shows, but can’t do it because you’re hogging the Netflix!”

“Listen, I know what kind of movies you’re watching in there! Mom and Dad will be happy if I utilize the account.”

“What kind of movies?”

“You know what kind of movies!”

“No I don’t, that’s why I’m asking?”

“It’s the movies that have all of the T & A!”

“T & A? What are we in the nineteen-eighties! The early internet is founded on two things: one, email for research universities, and two, sending T & A pictures to your friends! This is Netflix, not a National Geographic or a Playboy magazine!”

I walk into the dining room and say to my wife, “I don’t care if it’s snowing, let’s go to Vegas! We got to get out of here before everyone kills each other!”

My wife, always the calm, reasonable one, replies, “I’m going to wait for this fire to burn out on its own.”

“Why?”

“They are teenagers. They have to learn how to work together.”

“Wait a minute. The kids have to learn how to work together, by killing each other?”

“No,” my wife replies, “They have to come to a place where they can work together. You see, it’s all here in this book I am reading.”

On the dining room table, there is a book with a very thick spine which reads, “Siblings: A How-To Guide.”  Every time my wife gets a “self-help” book, the aftermath is that we are all by ourselves and in need of serious “help” to undo whatever the book told us to do.

My son throws the next grenade by saying, “Don’t worry, I hear you at two o’clock in the morning!”

“What do you hear?”

“Oh, I hear him alright.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t think I know, but I know EXACTLY what is going on?”

“Really? Enlighten me?”

“It’s that guy that Mom and Dad don’t want you to see. You hear from his two o’clock in the morning. You and he talk about all sorts of stuff. Everything from how your schoolwork is going, to running away from the house in the middle of the night, to how you want him to take you in his arms and –“

At that point, the wifi turns on and reconnects all of their mobile devices to the internet. All of the conversations stop upstairs as each of the kids are now re-connected to their social media worlds and they go back to their bedrooms.

I look at my wife, after listening to the conversation upstairs, knowing how close we came to a total family disaster, and knowing that all of us lived through this traumatic experience

I ask my wife, “What does your book say about how we should handle this type of problem?”

My wife replies, “Make sure that the main internet connection, the ethernet cable between the router and the cable splitter, is physically unplugged from the router before going to sleep every night. No more Netflix and no more late night conversations. Also, take their mobile devices. They don’t need a cellphone to sleep.” 

I get up from the chair and say, “Those are the smartest words I’ve heard all day!”

My wife asks, “Where are you going?”

I go to the kitchen, pull out a bottle of wine, reach in the cabinet for two glasses, as well as a corkscrew, and then return to the table.

I say, “It’s a snow day. We’re not getting out of here any time soon. Let’s at least enjoy ourselves.”

I uncork the wine, fill up the glasses, and hand one to my wife.

We raise them for a toast and I say, “May the snow plows come down the street tomorrow and rescue us from ourselves!”

My wife smiles and replies, “I’ll drink to that!”

Bottom line: snow days are great! It allows us to take a deep breath, have time with the family, and relax. But, too many snow days, as well as running low on food or having no wifi, is hell and should not be done by anyone … ever!

That’s all for today’s blog. Thank you for reading it! If you have any questions, please let me know.

Originally posted on https://nickstockton.blogspot.com