Thursday was taxing, to say the least. I left a little early from work to go pick up Three to take him to work and found myself in standstill traffic. There's an AM radio station that gives you up-to-date information in regards to road situations, but it's not really the clearest station. Like, you can kind of hear it when you roll up your windows and get to a certain spot on the interstate, squint your eyes and get really close to the speakers. Then you can hear "traffic" and "interstate" and "1680AM" in between various sounds of static. So of course, it's kind of useless. But that's Tennessee for you.
Anyway, there are flashy yellow lights on the side of the road with signs saying tune into the above mentioned station, which I do although previous experience told me to do otherwise. I hear the expected static and continue driving, going past several exits that in retrospect I wish I would have taken. But hindsight = 20/20. And then the cars just stopped moving. I was sitting still for nearly 45 minutes, calling Three every fifteen minutes or so to update him on my lack of progress.
Me: You should probably call your boss to tell him you're going to be late.
Three: Where are you?
Me: About two feet from where I was 10 minutes ago.
Three: Awesome.
As it turns out, there was a huge wreck involving two semis and at least two other vehicles, so I said a little prayer for those in the wreck and then sat in traffic more, pissed off. And I fell in love with this Mercedes SUV driver behind me, who was getting fed up with jerks who apparently thought they were special snowflakes who could use the shoulder to get ahead of everyone. The guy pulled out in the middle of the shoulder and just sat there. And that was my only source of glee until I finally got to my exit and busted ass to get home, so Three would only be sort of late to work. Unfortunately, I left him at work with no way to get food and he didn't have enough time to stop at Taco Bell* to pick up some stuff. So I promised to come back and take him to lunch at 6.
I got back to work and stayed there until about 5:15, giving me plenty of time to get back to Three. Or so I thought.
Because yay! Titans game! Dumbass people wandering around with beer coolers in their hands, ticket scalpers trying weird tactics to get you to buy their tickets**, and random streets blocked by irritated police officers. I called up Three around 5:58 and said, "Seriously, fuck this day. This is the second traffic jam I've had to deal with today, and at least the first one was legitimate. This is just for a stupid throw the ball and run venue. I hate everything."
Three told me not to worry and that we'd just go for dinner when I got there, which eased my tension a little bit.
Until I got to stupid Franklin, AKA WASP Central.*** I'm on I-65, which is usually not a bad road to be on most of the time. But this jackass in a white pickup truck was all, "Herpaderp, I'm going to drive like an asshole, swerving and shit because I have to text while I'm driving! Yay!" He nearly hit me three times, going in and out of his lane. On the fourth time, I honked at him and started gesturing to his phone and mouthing, "Get off your phone, you fucking asshole." Instead of thinking, "Well, it's probably a good idea that I get off of my phone because I'm endangering everyone on the road right now," this douche canoe decides that the best and mature way to handle someone that he's nearly hit now four times is to flip them off. Which just sent waves of chilly anger all over my body. He continued on his merry way, with his wife or girlfriend or whatever she was in the passenger seat who could have done the texting for him, but whatever, and I got off of the interstate, arriving at Three's work all in a tizzy, taking me nearly fifteen minutes to chill. But I got to have a nice dinner with the husband, which kind of made up for the whole thing.
The ride home was essentially uneventful, which was a blessing. I spent the next few hours talking to some of my friends online and tweeting random tweets. When it was time to go, I posted this:
Less than five miles away from my apartment, a jackass deer ran into my car. Let me say it again: A JACKASS DEER RAN INTO MY CAR. One ran right in front of me, which I saw and avoided by slowing down, but the other one? Smashed into the side. I hear BANG and then a crunching noise. Of course, I freaked out and pulled over. This poor deer was lying in the middle of the road, and I was sure it was dead. It wasn't very old, either, because it wasn't very big and I was able to move it to the side of the road, bawling the whole time. I was part scared, part pissed off, and part depressed over taking a life. Zola, who was in the car with me, couldn't figure out what was going on and just looked at me warily as I called both Three and my mom. Three spent about two minutes trying to decipher my words between sobs, and once he'd accomplished that made sure that I was okay and that the car was driveable. Mom, of course, made sure that I was okay and commiserated with me on the shock. Many years ago, she ran over a black lab and I think it still haunts her.
I was able to calm down enough to get back to driving, only a few minutes late to pick up Three, who rushed out to hug me and then inspect the damage, with his supervisor close behind him. Being me, I hadn't even checked to see what the car looked like because I was hauling a deer carcass out of the road. But luckily, it didn't really look like there was too much damage. I mean, there was a giant ... dent? Dent doesn't seem to be the right word. The large size of the ... dent, I guess, seems to warrant a more grandiose term.
Needless to say, I asked Three to drive, and I wanted to stop by the deer to make sure it was dead. When we drove past the spot where I'd moved the deer, though, it was gone, and I was all, "Behuwah? Where'd it go?" I was partly worried that coyotes had gotten the poor thing, but Three seemed to think that maybe I'd just knocked the deer out when it hit the car. I chose to believe the latter, as I don't want an animal to suffer and coyotes are dicks.
I've given up driving for a while, or at least until I absolutely have to get behind the wheel. Which unfortunately right now is going to be Monday morning. Sighhhhhhhhh. Maybe I'll just take the bus.
* Seriously, the cantina bowl is amazing. Try it out and you will be happy.
** This one guy accosted me at my open window: "BUY MY TICKET!!" I responded with a, "If you don't get out of my window, I am going to punch you in the face. You have no idea how much happiness that would bring me." He left me alone after that.
*** I hate WASPs. Like actually hate. Driving where many of them congregate just ... gets me mad? I don't know. It's hard to explain. I guess it's because I grew up in the exceptionally vapid society that sends a person into a dependency on antidepressants, and it irks me that it's considered the best way to be. Because they are rich. Or whatever. Ugh, I'm going to stop talking about it now because it's gettin' my dander up, whatever that actually means.
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