Rt. 128

I hate traffic....Actually I HATE driving, but I hate traffic even more. Just sitting in my car doing nothing just drives me crazy. I will flip through the stations, then flip through my Palm Pilot, then back to the radio just looking for either a good song or topic of conversation that I can tolerate. When that bores me, I will pick up my phone and start calling people hoping that will solve my boredom. Usually nothing does, and my mind just starts to wonder; and my mind is like a bad neighborhood, I should never go in it alone!!

Now, I have always been very fortunate where I have had jobs that never entailed too much traffic. Don't get my wrong, I may hit the occational school bus route, or maybe a backed up light, but other then that, it has always been smooth sailing. Hell, when I did find that one particular area was backed up at the same time every day, I would research the area to find back roads that I could take so that I wouldn't be forced to sit in that hell.

Well last December that all changed when I accepted a job at a morning toddler playgroup. The job is in Wellesley and I am in Woburn. Now, these two places are only about twenty minutes apart; but at 8:00 a.m., this ride could take up to an hour on the dreaded rt. 128. And if that wasn't bad enough, last April I started working at the hospital a few afternoons a week and I would leave at 5:00 on the same highway, with the same wonderful bumper to bumper gridlock I have come to loathe! What the f**k was I thinking!!!!!

At first it wasn't so bad. Like I said, I always had "something to do". The radio was helpful, the palm pilot worked as a nice filler, hell, I even listened to books on tape for a while, but being the ADD case that I am, I have grown bored with these things and now I am forced to find other things to do, like my make up and plucking my eyebrows. May seem strange to some, but I am sitting there for an hour, might as well be productive.

That leads me to the point of this blog (bet you were wondering when I was going to get to it). Let me just outline what kind of drivers I have to deal with (and the kind of driver I have grudgingly become) each and every morning:

1. Gotta get there first driver: This is the driver that feels the need to weave in and out of lanes just to get a whole two cars in front of you. And yes I said weave, which in traffic terms means, put on their blinker, and make their way over getting so damn close to you that you have to let them through or else they will take off half your car!

2. Conference Call Driver: This is the driver that is talking with their Bluetooth on their ear, sending messages on their two-way, and checking appointments on their Blackberry all while drinking their Starbucks coffee and steering with their knees!

3.Creepy Eighteen-Wheeler Driver: Now, one of best friends is a truck driver, but I'm sorry, they always seem to be trying to look and see something!

4. LOVE THIS SONG Driver: (I am sometimes this person). This is the driver that is so passionate about singing a song like "Walk Away" by Kelly Clarkson, that they forget that they are in traffic singing to the audience of their steering wheel, and think they are at Madison Square Garden singing to a crowd of 18,000 people!

5.Have to get Pretty in the Car Driver: This is who I am...No time in the morning, so get it done in the car. The difference between a.m and p.m with this one, is that the morning you start with fresh, but in the afternoon, you are just trying to clean it up!

I am sure there are more, but these are the people who I see every morning. I suppose that some may get a laugh out of it, and others may not even notice it, but trust and believe, if you did it and saw it every morning and afternoon then out of lack of nothing else to do, you too would be analyzing all the drivers you see while sitting in traffic!!

--Meg