I'm Addicted to Rageahol

For almost the last two years, I've been driving all around northern Illinois; mostly for school related reasons. Just going to school and back is literally about 80 miles a day round trip. Needless to say, this is quite a bit of driving; especially for me. I'm a city girl. For years, my primary means of transportation were either my own two feet or public transportation.
Now, am I saying that I miss the good old Chicago Transit Authority? Not quite. After playing a few thousand rounds of "what the hell is that smell?", public transportation sort of loses its charm. Not to mention that fact that you can get from point A to point B faster by dog sled than you can by bus during the winter months and it becomes fairly obvious that the CTA has its downside.

I was forced into commuting by necessity. Don't get me wrong. I love my car. LOVE IT. My scale of things I love the most goes Mom>Cats>Car>Caffeine>Miscellaneousotherfamilymembers. My car has direct service from one destination to the next without any additional stops. My car runs on my schedule. My car is temperature-controlled and is there whenever I want it. And best of all, my car doesn't have any random creepy dudes that choose to sit directly next to me even though there may be thirty empty seats available.

Yet, driving does have it cons; the biggest of them being that you have to drive with other people. Now, at 5am outbound on any major expressway leading out of the city, this is not a big deal. Roads are clear and cops are scarce. It's pretty much the ideal driving time as far as I'm concerned. I like speed like crackheads like. . . well. . . crack. Any other time of day is pretty much a clusterfuck of old people driving 15mph under the speed limit and 85% of everyone else driving the actual Illinois speed limit or whatever the speed limit is in the their home state (which is apparently 20mph).

Needless to say, I'm prone to the occasional road rage. It's not a serious case, mind you. I'm not going to be on the next episode of Dr. Phil with my face blurred out whipping a milkshake (or whatever else I happen to be drinking at the time) onto someone else's windsheild while screaming obscenities. That is totally not me. I don't care if it does look like me. That's a complete coincidence.

Anyhoo, I will admit that I have been known to get slightly pissed off at people in the far left lane who are driving like they're driving Miss Daisy. Maybe I've tailgated them a little bit. Maybe I've flashed my brights in their rearview mirror so many times that it looks like Morse code. I'm not asking them to break the speed limit. I just want them to get the hell out of the way so I can do it. Would it really kill anyone to speed up just a little to change lanes? I find it fairly unlikely that a state trooper is going to appear, throw down a spike strip causing their car to fishtail out into the median, then drag them out of the driver's seat and beat the shit out of them for going 5mph over the speed limit. Unless, of course, they're shooting an episode of Cops. In which, case that could happen. . . they could also coincidentally "discover" a kilo of cocaine in the trunk. Still, odds are pretty low on all that.

Then there's that's special driver that for sure sees you coming up behind them , but still decides to change lanes at the last minute. Obviously, risking being rear ended by another car going 80 and having you both burst into a Jerry Bruckheimer-esque ball of flame is totally worth passing a school bus.

Anyone driving a semi or a one of those Pace vans should go end themselves. Immediately. I'm sure that after 8 straight hours of having a pack of geezers jabbering at you to slow down even while the van is in park, death probably starts to look pretty good anyway.

Luckily, I have roughly 8 months of school left. My long distance commute should come to an end after that. Hopefully, it'll be back to cheapie public transportation and it's colorful cast of characters. Because, you know, it's really been too long since I heard the soothing sound of a drunk retching in the back of a train car.