Ranting Again

I woke before the roosters this a.m. Bob had already gone to work at the golf course. I stumbled around the house feeding cats, went out in the rain to feed birds. (Good morning, Ms. Trudy! Every day she’s still here makes me smile.) Eventually I managed to get dressed and crawl into my car, balancing a cup of tea. That darned Raiders cup won’t fit in the holder.

Even at 6:45 it takes forever to merge into the traffic that always whizzes mindlessly by on the highway in front of the house, one car after another, hundreds of them.

Many of them are “newcomers,” and they gripe me more every year. I conjure a spell that will make anyone on the highway who hasn’t lived in this area for at least 20 years disappear. It doesn’t work. It never works. I am a bitch, not a witch.

Once on the highway, I’m sandwiched between two of the mindless idiots, watching closely for brake lights. It takes a full 45 minutes just to get to Sacramento from my front door. And then the real fun begins: figuring out which way the streets are going today so I can maneuver my way downtown.

The people who live downtown are even worse than me. They think they’re so special the streets are there solely for their convenience. Every week or so they change the direction traffic can run on the streets. Worse, they block parts of them off, sending cars in endless circles.

I used to just get on G Street and go straight to where I needed to be. Now when I take the G Street off ramp from the freeway, there is nowhere to go. The street is blocked with a huge concrete planter. Why is there an offramp to nowhere? Now I have to go to H Street and turn right. Two blocks later, H Street is blocked by another planter. I have to turn right again, which takes me back to G Street.

This is called “traffic calming.” How can something that makes drivers irate be called “calming”? The speed limit is 35, the traffic is already slow. I see no one on the sidewalks: no kids, no pets. Who is being protected? No one, they just want to piss off people who don’t live there.

So I’m thinking maybe when I get home I’ll take one of the empty horse troughs, fill it with flowers, and drag it out across one lane of the highway. This week the highway in Cosumne will be open only to westbound traffic. Next week I’ll move it to the other lane. We have unwelcome traffic racing through Cosumne that really needs to be calmed.

I’d see if Steve the concrete guy across the street could put in a speed bump, but we’d have to do a study to see where the cars’ trajectory would launch them when they hit it going 65 mph.

Back to my present situation. Luckily I left early so I won’t have any trouble getting a parking space and being on time. Ooops. Wrong. When I find a space my car can finally squeeze into, I can barely get out the door. I smear my clothes all over the side of my filthy car.

By now I’m really steamed. I hate this, I’m not a happy camper. Someone’s going to pay.

If you were a defendant, would you want me on YOUR jury?