Original Writing: Road Rage!

ROAD RAGE!

I wake up early, before the staccato siren that is my alarm. It's cold out this morning, I can tell because I slept well. I am so warm and comfortable beneath my pillowy blankets, but I drag myself out of bed to start the process of getting ready to go to work at a job I really don't care for.

Waking up at 5 am is hard and even harder when the reason is shit.

I do it anyhow. I need money.

I turn the heat on with reluctance, knowing the warmth comes at a cost. My electric bill. Then the typical hot shower, teeth brushing, lunch packing monotony of a 9 to 5 kind of day. Why do we live like this? Working most of the hours of our short lives. There has to be something better. Some people do what they love and are successful. I am not. I made the wrong choices apparently. Not a risk taker.

Fuck. I am already pissed. The day is dark even as the orange radiance of the flaming ball of gas that we call the sun illuminates the horizon.

I grab my lunch and gym bag and hike off to my Jeep, the vehicle I paid too much money for and no matter what I do to keep it nice always get dents, dings, and sun damage. Why can't I have anything nice?

Every day is the same. The same issues and same complaints, yet I keep going. I smile. I laugh. I love. I live with the hope that I will win the lottery and not have to deal with this ordinary shit. No luck so far.

The drive to work is a mostly easy 20 miles, especially after I get off the main boulevard through town. Naturally I expect to hit all of the lights as they turn red, even with no fucking traffic coming from the other direction. Today is my day! I hit them all at green! Holy shit. This might be a good day.

I have a good podcast babbling away in the background and the dream of a rich black cup of coffee waiting for me at my desk. I trundle down the highway with a little hope.

Hope if fleeting.

I see all the red of a thousand break lights before me. The flashing blue of the police cars. I am only halfway to work, in the middle of a swamp with no exits between me and the exit for work. Traffic is stopped and I am in the right lane. It's easy at first, but nothing is moving, and my head starts to ache with rising blood pressure.

Google maps give me the first bad news. Traffic stopped, plus twenty-eight minutes. I sit and wait, trying to focus on my podcast. Instead, I keep checking the internet for traffic reports as my ire rises. I think to myself "why the fuck do I have to suffer because some stupid shit doesn't know how to drive. I hate travelling! I have to rely on other people being responsible and they aren't!".

I rage. Then I lose it when the traffic report informs me there was a truck accident involving a car hauler being a dumbass. I should feel pity for the driver, but they were fine, and I can't. I am late for work, and I am burning fuel in an already fuel sucking vehicle.

God damnit. Fuck!

I see people driving along the median, in the grass heading for and turn around spot. I follow and gun it onto the west bound lane. There is another route, a longer more scenic route, but at least I'll get there. Time takes me to the back road, and I get going again. I'm still pissed, but it is subsiding.

Until it isn't.

A passing eighteen-wheeler, coming from the other direction, cast a stone right into my windshield. I don't see where it hits, but I hear it. The rage is back and fuckwad in front of me is driving slow as fuck because they are stupid. Fuck this asshole and fuck that truck!

I am seething like a boiling pot of water, anger and hate pushing at the edge of my sanity. I keep going. The road takes several more miles than the normal route and leads me straight into more fucking backed up traffic. Both lanes are closed on the main highway and the shit fuckers that are coming from the other direction are backed up waiting doe the highway to open. I can't get to work.

Fuck it, I am going home. Fuck these people and their stupid lives. Fuck work. Fuck the asshole who wrecked.

I am done.


I don't really mean any of this and don't know why I (we) get the road rage. This is just an excellent medium for venting. I did stay home from work though! I wrote this on theProse to literally vent from my morning...It's abstract art...