Road Rage Cured By Insane Amounts of Traffic

Somewhere between South Windsor, CT and Somerville, MA, the disease I previously thought to be terminal- the strain of intense anger known as Massholitis Road Ragemonia, which causes inexplicable flare ups of unreasonable bouts of madness while driving- ceased to exist within my system.

At exit 72 on route 84, when traffic screeched to a halt at 7:50pm on Sunday night, I thought for sure I would fly off the handle if I was forced to drive bumper to bumper with the world's worst drivers (The Moms and The Dads who drop their kids off at college after Easter/Spring Break) at 20 mph for the next 5 minutes. After following an idiot- no, make that a stupidiot- who preferred to chat with his friends instead of paying attention to the road forcing me to downshift unnecessarily 6 or 7 or 100 times, I waited for my blood to begin boiling. When I had gone only 7 miles in 30 minutes, and was only at Charleton Plaza(CHARLETON PLAZA) almost 2 hours into my journey, mainly due to the fact that nobody knows how to merge or pick up toll tickets in a quick and speedy manner, I expected the feeling of uncontrollable anger to take over my system in the form of laying my hand on the horn for 15 minutes straight, but that feeling never came.

Instead, I found myself looking at the positive side of things. It's not every day I get to practice driving in such horrendous traffic with such irresponsible drivers! After getting through the worst of it, I gave myself seventeen pats on the back and one high five (even though high fives aren't my style) because I did such a fantastic job coasting easily through the jam.

I also took advantage of the additional time I was in the car. That mix CD I made before I went home for Easter on Saturday? I now know the lyrics to every song, including "You Can Call Me Al." I am bringing up "You Can Call Me Al" specifically, because this is a song I have liked for many years, not because of the content of the lyrics or even the catchy tune but because I always found the music video hysterical. Tonight, for the first time ever, I actually took the time to listen to the words of the song, because I realized I only knew the first part and the chorus and during the rest of it I would hum along and wait until the "Na-na-na---na!" part. Do you know what I discovered after listening to this song repeatedly? The words make NO sense AT ALL.

When I finally made it home, I went immediately to my mactop to look up the meaning of the lyrics. The only tidbit of information Wikipedia gave me was this: "The names in the song came from an incident at a party that Simon went to with his wife Peggy Harper. The host of the party called Paul "Al", and Peggy "Betty", inspiring Simon to write a song." Well, Wiki, that doesn't nearly explain who the man is who walks down the street, soft in the middle and short of attention span who needs a photo opportunity and is worried about ending up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard. Why did his role model disappear with a roly poly bat-faced girl? How did he end up in a strange world (maybe it is the third world) without currency?

Actually, Wiki, the only part I didn't question was the chorus, because I figured that if you'll be my bodyguard then I'll be your long lost pal. I can call you Betty, and Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al.

I don't even know what this post is about anymore, but here is the video: