On the Circulation of Traffic

Alright, DC Metro Area drivers, I've got some beef to pick with you. Y'all suck! I mean, you guys REALLY suck. Okay, okay, maybe not every last one of you, but enough of you people are so bad the rest of us can only drive around in sheer terror and frustration. Now, I understand that there are many respectable reasons why your driving might not be the best: you're not from around here (who is really? (well, I am (I know, strange, isn't it?))), there is construction everywhere (to this day, this is my biggest problem with the stimulus package), you have an important text to send ("OMG LOL U R MY BFF" do you realize with the advent of smart phones, it is actually harder to text that way?), you dropped your doobie and need you're trying to find it (seriously, man, you paid good money for that grass), you are from Maryland, you have DC plates (I'm pretty sure that having DC plates might be causal regardless of where you are from), you're a jerk... I mean really, the list could just go on and on but it's getting to be too much for me to handle. My not-so-internal-and-really-external monologue while I'm driving has progressed to the point where I am about ready to go Christian Bale on you. So, in an effort to save my soul, I have decided to put together a sort of primer to help save the lives and souls of countless DC area drivers.


1. Take the Metro- Look, I get it, driving inside the Beltway is tough. But DC has one the best public transit systems in the country, and with over 1 Million riders a day I'm sure they can accommodate one more rider. It may not be perfect but it's a hell of a lot better than making me want to kill you because I'm getting to the end of my rope and I might just snap. As my uncle always would say, "If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen."


2. Under NO circumstances should you drive below the speedlimit- I can't believe I need to explain this to you people. Countless times I have found myself stuck behind drivers going only 45mph and needing to step on the break, this is unacceptable. The speedlimit on our freeways is 55mph: this is actually the lower limit to the speed that you should be driving.


Corollary A to 2. If you are in the left hand lane you are either passing traffic or getting out of the left lane


Corollary B to 2. When entering the highway you MUST accelerate. Again, I know you are probably not from around here and I don't know how they teach you to drive in North Dakota but you're in the Big City now. By the time that solid white line on your left turns into a dashed one, you should be at speed with the traffic you're about to merge with. I know it can be hard if you're driving a 1995 Geo Metro but you have just got to put the pedal to the metal and unleash that hamster. And the worst thing you could ever do when entering a highway is to slow down. If another person decides to slow down instead of speed up in front of me... well, somebody gonna get hurt.


3. Following closer does not make things go faster, it just doesn't- In fact, following closer would seem to cause more traffic problems than it solves: less time for reaction, enraging passive-aggressive drivers (like yours truly) who will slow down purposefully, no space for drivers to merge into, etc. So take it from me, touching our bumpers will get you nowhere... unless you're trying to get a good look at the back of my head. You will, however, be sorely disappointed, all the good stuff is up front.


4. "Oooh, look at the monuments! Oh my gosh, we're all going to die!"- this is what you should avoid at all costs. I can assure you, that despite how awesome they may seem as you are whizzing by, the monuments look far better when you are afoot (having had this as my home for well over 25 years, I speak from authority), just pay attention to the road.


Christ told us, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" (Mt 22:37-39) Each presents its own difficulties for me. I am seemingly tempted to break the second commandment every time I get into a car. So if you care for my soul, you might try following Dr. Harvey's two suggestions for driving in the DC area: 'Don't be an ass' and 'get off the road'.

Everybody's got a story to tell

Stories are a fascination of mine. I love a good story. A well told story is always a pleasure. And if told well, it doesn't matter if the story is about some great happening or a short trip to the store to grab some milk. All that matters is that the appropriate frame of mind and emotions are adequately conveyed to the audience. Frankly, I don't even care if the story is true (now, whether or not the story tells a 'truth' is a whole 'nother matter) so long as I, the audience, am captured. How does one tell a good story? I don't claim to be an expert on this sort of thing but I believe a good story mostly depends on just the right amount of exaggeration. Enough to excite and engage the listener's imagination but not too much that reason steps in rejects the image is improbable. There is plenty more that goes into telling a story, such as flow and a plot, but my personal consideration only goes as far as exaggerations.


Well, what's my point? Nothing, really. Just an opportunity to spout off some baseless nonsense that I know nothing about and to create a segue into telling my favorite story to tell. Without further ado, my favorite story ever:


The names and identities of the persons involved have been changed to protect their privacy. 


It was May of 2007 and I had just finished school in California. It was time for me to make an epic journey to my home: Virginia. I was ready to get the hell out of Dodge and had a long drive ahead but fortunately I had a good friend, Joe, driving with me and stops at friend's houses planed all along the the way. Despite giving Joe fair warning that my car was a stick shift and that he would have to learn before the trip, it happened to slip his mind. No matter, highway driving is rather simple and I could teach him during the trip... right. 


About 5 or 6AM on our scheduled day of departure, I wake up and head to Joe's room to make sure he is up and ready to go. He was up alright and let out a short 'sigh' that turned into something of a long 'ugh'. Without any prompting, Joe let me know that he just lost his cookies- all of them. Multiple times. Worried that he won't be well enough to head out, I ask him if we should postpone our departure. With another 'ugh' and a swig from his handy water bottle, Joe assures me that, without a doubt, he is ready to go. We pack our last few things into my already overloaded car and head out.


Now, I have to tell you: My absolute favorite thing about road trips is that they are the perfectly justifiable excuse to stop at McDonald's for breakfast. On the one hand, McDonald's breakfast is absolutely disgusting. One meal probably has enough grease to power a mid-size diesel truck for 500 miles. On the other hand, it is just so damn tasty! Seriously, I don't know what they put into it but if they sold breakfast all day long I would probably need to go into a twelve-step program and/or die of a massive heart attack before I turned 40. That being said, I was incredibly surprised... shocked and appalled... ashamed... concerned for my dear friend's well being when he said he wanted nothing from McDonald's for breakfast! I honestly could not grasp what was happening. Perhaps Joe just didn't understand what I was asking. So I asked him again. And again. And about 15 more times just to be sure. I couldn't even persuade him to get a coke to help settle his stomach. He told me his water bottle was all he needed. "Sucker," I thought to myself, "he doesn't even know what he's missing." Anyways, onward to New Mexico. To this day I still do not understand how he didn't even want ONE thing, hmph!


Onward, we traveled. The road we took was a rather steep 4-lane windy freeway that led us over the mountains of California. This led to a drive that would reasonably make an uneasy stomach want to eject its contents. I need to take a pause in the story at this time to talk about a crucial factoid that I have omitted and was unbeknown to us at the time. Regardless of the conditions of the drive, I'm not sure Joe would have been able to avoid throwing up again. You see, his water bottle that he had so diligently been drinking from had been sitting next to his bed half drunk for more than two weeks. One can only imagine what was growing inside of that bottle; needless to say, it was the kind of thing that provokes a person to lose his cookies.


What transpired next, I think, will never cease to cause me endless laughter. Joe turns to me and says, calmly and quietly, "Can you pull over, soon, please." Easier said than done. As I tried to make my way over through the swarm of California drivers, Joe starts rummaging through the contents of his seat well and emerges victoriously! With an empty McDonalds bag, nonetheless. Whelp, needless to say, he yacked into the bag and a mighty yack it was. As he sat there, looking somewhat relieved, he announced, "the bag... it's, uh, leaking." Simple solution to this problem-- but one must remember to always speak precisely. I said, "Put it out the window." By which, I meant to release the bag containing vomitus out the window of our moving vehicle; he, however, understood that he was to hold the leaking bag out the window and NOT release it. I am not really well equipped to appropriately describe what happened next but it was something of a puke-bomb, if there is such a thing, the effects of which were plastered to the rear passenger window of my forest green 1998 Honda Civic-- it blended in quite well, might I add. I immediately start laughing and between chuckles I yell out "LET THE BAG GO!" Joe slowly turned back to me, gives me a quizzical look and asks sheepishly, "And litter?" My response took no thought, "YES!"


After we pulled off the road and got Joe cleaned up, he turns to me and says in complete earnest, "I've given it a lot of thought and I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've ever littered." A Cardinal Sin for a native Californian.