Traffic! The Devil’s work. The path to Zen and one of the many Catholic trials. Once you conquer the road rage you are on the path to eternal glory. Or at least that what we should believe instead of hammering frantically at the wheel or stupidly honk the horn hoping that the traffic will magically disperse. Only your horn can provide the guidance the other drivers need to open up and let you pass. It is the Devil’s work!
Most people get stuck in traffic at various times, and at times when you least need to get delayed. Traffic is evil! It screws with your well laid plans, whether these are business plans or romantic dates with your partner.
Funnily enough, people have different interpretations of what traffic actually means. It all depends where they live and which areas they have visited.
Take my dad (bless his soul). We are from a tiny spot in the picturesque Danish rural harbor village, where traffic is measured in how many people you can wave to when stuck at the local traffic light. And, there are not many traffic lights to get stuck at, but you do tend to know all people who drives around.
One time I was visiting my parents, my dad and I had to go grocery shopping. This is when I lived in Dublin (Ireland), where the M50 is a well-known car park. Anyway, on our way to the local market, we got caught by the red light, with about 12 cars in front of us. My dad instantly broke into cursing, blaming the economy for excessive cars on the roads, the European influence on rural Denmark and that my mum would be utterly upset with this delay. After a pain staking 7 minutes we finally cleared the traffic light and parked at the super market.
I subsequently tried to explain to my dad that this was nothing compared to the M50 / Dublin city traffic. It would take me an hour to drive 10 miles to work, each way, going about 20mph at top speed.
Within a few months my parents visited Dublin, which fueled pure road rage in my dad. I’ve seen him upset before, but this was Saddam Hussein rage. He was ready to nuke East coast of Ireland, and would happily live in the nuclear winter that follows just to avoid traffic like this ever again. Needless to say we had a few pints when we finally made it back to the house and WALKED down to the local pub to watch Chelsea beat Arsenal (Gunners) – what a day!
Today we live close to New York City. Population = 8.4 million souls … almost double size of Denmark’s entire population. As a result, traffic is bedlam. Sorry, let me rephrase that. Traffic is absolutely shite. Please consider that this is the city that never sleeps, so there’s always traffic. However, on the few occasions my wife and I went on date night to the city, we’ve got stuck in traffic.
- If/Then show on broadway – it took us almost three hours to snail through 6 miles down to Broadway, which resulted in us missing dinner, and had to settle for a lovely drive muffin as the door opened to the show
- Black Keys (Barclay Center, Brooklyn) – traffic prevented us from enjoying a romantic dinner, but thanks to “awesome” chicken at Barclay Center
- Ed Kowalczyk (City Winery) – we had ‘meet ‘n greet’ tickets, but missed the opportunity to meet the dude himself, but did have lovely Peruvian dinner
My dad is most likely sitting in the sky cursing, much to the amusement of St. Peter, blaming anything from Obamacare to Siberian Northern Lights that the traffic is not flowing well, almost causing his son’s (me) to miss out on romantic times with his beautiful wife.
Take care of each other. Don’t let traffic bring out your bed side. Be Zen. Be happy and avoid using the horn … it only brings more anger. Anger leads to the dark side 🙂