friday morning traffic

I don't know where this story came from, but I think it is the beginning to a longer piece, but I might already hate the character. Oh well...

It might be dangerous to drive across four lanes of traffic to the sixth tollbooth. Twenty minutes into my commute I race to fit in the lines leading up to number six, regardless of the traffic coming at me. It’s 7:30am and I’m already late.

My head is pounding. Tequila Thursdays were a favorite in college. Six shots before we even left for the night. Tequila Thirties doesn’t quite have the same ring, unless you count the ringing in my ears and the throbbing pain in my neck.

A blue Jetta cuts me off as I merge onto I90 and I scream a nice, fuck you, knowing the middle-aged man talking into the Bluetooth piece in his ear is completely oblivious to my car and my existence.

The BBC World Service blares through the radio: the only thing that calms me in the morning. Ironic, how endless reports of bad news can put my own little life in perspective. A new government in some Stan country I’ve never heard of, and a senator from West Virginia just died and the balance of power in the Senate is cause for concern. Every morning I wait to hear the world is coming to an end, and I’m rarely disappointed.

By time I’ve reached the tolls my caffeine addiction has been satisfied and I can feel the wrinkle in my forehead relaxing to the permanent crease that has been there since college. An audible sigh escapes my mouth and I rifle through my change to collect the $1.25 I need, and hand it to Eddie.

Eddie is the elderly man who has worked in the sixth tollbooth since I started my 9-to-5, maybe before but I wouldn’t know. He knows me now, at least by recognition. He asks me how my morning is going, takes my money, careful not to drop the quarter, and smiles. He never raises the bar before he tells me a joke, something to “brighten my morning” as he always says.

It might be dangerous to cut across four lanes of traffic to get to Eddie’s tollbooth, but I do it anyway; every morning, at roughly 7:52, after my coffee and after the world news.

This morning Eddie asks me if I’d ever though how rough driving could be if cows could fly like bugs. I don’t know where he comes up with these thoughts.

I laugh, and drive away, thankful that my windshield wipers push away mosquitoes, and not cows.