Feb 11, 2019 3 min read

Once upon a time, I was meeting my friend Sandy at the movies. I stood outside the theater, waiting impatiently. I kept thinking, “If she shows up right now, I have time to go get popcorn, go to the restroom and see all the trailers.”

A few minutes later, I thought, “If she shows up right now, I can get popcorn and go to the restroom and skip the trailers.”

Five minutes after that, I thought, “I’ll go straight to the restroom and I will just miss the opening credits.”

Finally, she walked in and said, “I’m sorry I’m late. I got caught behind someone going the speed limit.”

I didn’t really understand her until last week during my morning commute. I was stuck behind someone who decided to mosey into work on a Monday morning.

Dude, it’s called rush hour for a reason! I need to see some rushing!

I don’t love having to go to work every weekday morning, but I do like getting there on time.

The day had started off poorly. The power had gone out in the middle of the night. When I woke Monday morning my alarm clock was blinking 3:30 a.m. The time on my iPhone read 7:10 a.m. I was confused. I thought, “Don’t I normally leave the house at seven?” The realization washed over me, and I scrambled to the shower for an actual wash.

I ran a toothbrush across my front teeth and patted down my hair with my other hand. I got dressed faster than Sos and Victoria Petrosyan, and they’re in the Guinness Book of World Records.

I threw on my coat and jumped into my car. I left the house faster than Scooby and Shaggy after they’ve seen a ghost, or, rather, an old guy in a costume.

There I was – ready to punch it into warp speed – only to be foiled by a village idiot in a blue Subaru.

There I was, inching along on a one-lane road trying to plot my escape. Traffic was already bad and I was already in a mood. Traffic snarled and I snarled back.

At an intersection, he decided to let three cars out from behind a stop sign. At this point, you could have boiled a pot of tea on my forehead.

He sat there waving them on – casually puffing on a cigarette. I chastised myself for my evil thought, “The cancer isn’t going to kill him fast enough.”

How many “Hail Marys” do you have to say for that one?

At the very next intersection, he let a bus in, which immediately stopped to pick up 35 passengers at a bus stop. I thought my head was going to explode – like a horror movie from the ’80s.

When I pulled into the parking lot, I congratulated myself for not jumping out of my car and murdering him at a red light.

Professor Plum-face with an ice scraper in the front seat of a blue Subaru.