Lucky Me

We are all at a stand-still here on Bell Street. I don't know why I always take this route. I should have taken Western. Bell is always the worst. I often wonder if there's some sort of accident up ahead. Perhaps I've chosen the path directly behind the carnage, and now we are being slowly and clumsily bottle-necked into one slow moving lane.

But that is rarely the case. There is simply too much traffic this time of day. I usually avoid the rush. I go to work at six or seven, not nine. The professional world is still in bed, trying to find the strength to face another day at the office, but I am already hard at work, organizing, packaging, filling counters, checking numbers and yelling at big burly boys with big sharp knives. I have to paint a fake smile on my face and greet those cantankerous customers as if I had invited them myself, but it's cool. They pay me, you know.

Not today. Today I am stuck in traffic with the sun-seeking world, trying to creep my way across town to my regular mechanic. My motor mounts need replacing, and I've been putting it off far too long.
I could tell you about the hell I went through last month with a mechanic who was not my regular guy, but it's really only of interest to me. To you, it would just sound like bitching.

That financial stress on top of my daughter and grandson moving to another state, Matthew being on the runaway list for weeks, Jacob and David jumping individually from one place to the next to the next, the situation at work...other things...

I'm stuck in traffic now. My fingers are wrapped firmly around the steering wheel at TEN &TWO. I am not rubbernecking to see what the problem is. I am not revving my engine to ready myself to change lanes at the first opening. I am simply sitting and waiting for things to move forward.


She's over there in her car with her elegant hand hanging out the driver's side window barely holding onto the cigarette between her perfectly manicured fingers. Her long hair has been pulled into a messy tail. It is bobbing back and forth to the music she hears. She is singing along with all abandon. I can almost read her perfectly painted lips.

Curiosity gets the best of me. I lower my passenger window just enough to identify the song. Taylor Swift. Of course.

For a moment, I wish I was her. I want to be that carefree girl who sings love songs in traffic during the morning rush. I wish I could turn it on, turn it up and croon it out with no regard for the cranky, stressed-out woman in the next car who doesn't particularly favor Taylor Swift.

The movement of my window grabs her attention. She catches me staring. Her face twists into a scowl. She changes immediately into what I can only decribe as a Harpy. She flicks her lit cigarette toward my car and flips me the bird.

I nonchalantly push the power window button. The glass returns to its original position, protecting me from her assault and her bad attitude. I look anywhere but her direction and smile to myself.

How lucky I am not to be anything like her.
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