Wednesday, March 07, 2007

My Commute

My old job was about three miles away from my apartment. If it was nice out, I'd ride my bike and if it was raining I would suck it up and walk with an umbrella.

My new job is about 20 miles away and across the forbidding Northern Virginia trafficscape, a stretch of unmoving steel and rubber that has made grown men quail and stout women miscarry in trepidation of hard times ahead.

I can, however, take the metro and then the bus to work, which takes 15 minutes longer than driving but allows me to do some crossword puzzles in the paper and otherwise completely miss out on the carnage around me.

Sometimes I have to go to different buildings for training and I can't take the bus. This means that once every couple of weeks I drive to work and I was starting to worry that I hate people.

I don't worry about that anymore, because now I know that I don't hate people: I just hate drivers from Maryland and they're not really people, you see.

Ms. Alcarwen, her family, and friends are all complete exceptions to this. Then again, how often have I seen her drive? No, no, I'm sure she's different.

She would never tailgate me on a twisting road because I was only doing 10 over the speed limit. She would never change lanes three times in hope of finding that magic faster route around an impenetrable wall of cars. She doesn't run red lights and sit through green ones.

She doesn't do these things despite being from Maryland, where apparently the slippery abortions that inhabit the state clamber into their cars in order to simulate the wombs that shunned them so they can rush home and sprinkle meth on their Cool Ranch Doritos and knock out their teeth so that their scabrous cocks don't snag while they autofellate themselves next to their fat voids of women shooting up armfuls of baking soda into themselves so they can feel their blood tickle and giggle through their spit bubbles.

I long for the bus on days like this. I like crossword puzzles.