It was so hot in Arizona yesterday….
I’m not from Arizona or the south where the temperatures are apparently slightly higher than the sun’s core, and I’m not from DC or California where the traffic is slower than the parking lot at Walmart on Black Friday, but I am from Seattle where the sun doesn’t shine(where people keep telling me to go) and yesterday it took me three hours to get home from work. Normally, it takes me 40 minutes to get to work and an hour to an 1:15 to get home.
I had a small errand to run on the way home, so I did that in about 30 minutes and figured that it would add about 30 to 45 minutes to my commute. It did not. Maybe some math expert can explain to me how exponentials work, but seriously a minute off a path in traffic is like 10 minutes real time. I’ve known this for years, but yesterday I lived the daymare. If ever there was a time where traffic could have become a person and I could say a few things to it, this is what I would have said. Nothing. I would have said nothing. I would have just punched it in the face and drove away. It would have cost me another ten minutes, but it would have been worth it.
How driving home felt yesterday.
So while I was multitasking by driving and thinking about punching traffic at the same time, I contemplated just how many different things I could have done if I had those three hours back. So I came up with a list of things that I could have done in less time than it took me to get home last night.
- I could have driven to a theater, watched 45 minutes of previews, The Entire Captain America: Civil War movie, stayed for the ending credits so I could see both of the teasers for the next Marvel movie, eaten popcorn for breakfast the next day and still made it home 5 minutes earlier.
- I could have gone on a three hour tour on the SS Minnow, got lost on an island, walked the whole thing, figured out a way to get off the island, sailed back on a luxury yacht, caught the Captain America:Civil War movie and been back with 10 minutes to spare.
- I could have gone back to college to take a statistics class, failed, taken it again during summer school and got an A in it, eaten some popcorn for dinner and still had a few minutes before I got home.
- I could have gone to the beach, forgot my sunscreen, got sand everywhere you could possibly imagine, lost my sandals, got burnt to a crisp, recovered from my sunburn a week later, and still had a few minutes to spare.
- I could have gone to Walden’s Pond, lived a life of seclusion, written two bad novels about it, taken a class from Thoreau on how to write, wrote two more bad novels, retired, ate some stale popcorn and still had a few minutes to spare.
- I could have played three straight hours of video games.
- I could watched the entire NBA finals.
- I could have eaten every meal I had during the day, plus snacks, and that Klondike bar for desert.
- I could have seen every fireworks show in the Puget Sound, and seen 15 million dollars of fireworks used.
- I could have heard the entire song “Stairway to Heaven”.
- I could have gone from here to New York on a plane.
- I could do one blog, post that was actually edited fairly decently and had, the commas in the right, spot and all the wurds speled corectly.
- I could have watched the entire 9 seasons of The Office.
- I could have taken a three hour nap.
In conclusion, I could have done a lot of things in three hours efficiently, but as you know, I am inefficient. So I probably would have wasted all that time doing nothing.
ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH
Bitter Freaking Traffic Ben
Ben's Bitter Blog 
We have no public transport to speak of in Nashville. Your commute sounds about the equivalent of mine when working downtown – except when it rains and doubles. And snow? Might as well get a room and stay in town as 3 or 4 hours is normal for about 23 miles.
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Yeah, the public transpo around here isn’t great and the traffic is kind of ridiculous when going certain places at certain times.
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It used to be ok when I used to drive there from Portland, Oregon for fun weekends. Guess more cars these days.
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It depends when you were here, but from what I’m told from old time residents, it used to be so secluded here. Now, not so much.
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Wow!! Times change indeed. I last visited more than 10 years ago. Thanks for sharing 😊
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I’ve been here for 15 and it has changed a lot in that time. The people before I moved here, say it was even better before I got here.
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Seattle traffic has gotten so bad?!
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Yeah, especially this week. Not sure why but it’s taken me 1/2 to an hour longer this week. So bitter….
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Chillax on beer and pizza….it will make you feel better ha ha…or bitterly good 😉
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I would chillax if all these people called co-workers would quit interrupting my naps.
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Dammit!! There were trailers for 2 more movies after Captain America?!
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It was just those little teaser scenes they do with all Marvel movies. Did you not get enough at the beginning of the movie?
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Never!
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You’re one of those that enjoys the previews more than the movie. Yeah, me too.
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But think how much more enjoyable wasting the time would have been if you had inefficiently selected the way to piss away the minutes.
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So I need to watch Civil War then?
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Not necessarily. You can watch any really long movie like Titanic or Avatar if you want to too.
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Stop bragging about your three hour commute. How jealous I am of you and how you got to enjoy the wonders of the freeway and listening to your favorite podcasts. I would so enjoy driving from Kent to Lynnwood everyday if I could. But alas, I work mostly from home. I envy you, road warrior.
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I know. You don’t get any of the joys of the commute. The smell of smog in the air, the angry bitter cars around you, the constant stop and go and wait. Nothing can compare.
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I sooooooooooo feel your bitterness! Living in ATL has really taught me patience, bitterness, profanities, etc. Traffic here is a bitch but you know, it helps to have really good music to listen to. Love this post! I can so relate. 🙂
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I have the music and the podcasts and if it is only an hour home, that I can deal with. But three hours felt like an eternity.
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That sounds like almost every day for me, back when I was stupid enough to work in West LA and live near downtown LA. It was awful, sometimes it was over an hour commute to go only 10 miles.
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Yeah, LA probably has the worst, but we aren’t far behind here. They keep trying to build trams and trains and stuff and then realize they are way too expensive and bad structurally and mess up even more.
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LA does that too. We did get a new rail out to Santa Monica, but getting on the metro is still not convenient enough to take on a regular basis though.
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Yeah, even if we had gotten the tram, it still wouldn’t have helped us because we are too far away.
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All of us who read your blog know one truth. Those are all the things you could have done. What you would have done is entirely different. You’re Bitter Ben, the man who would be staring at the screen, remote in hand. while laying on the couch. 🙂
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You bitter believe it. In the end, the remote will always be what I end up doing.
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Reblogged this on The Humor Observatory and commented:
This made me laugh . . . We have traffic, but nothing like what I experienced in SoCal.
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Doing Nothing > Sitting in Traffic
(That’s as math-y as we get around here.)
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That is the only math I know, that’s for sure. And doing nothing is always preferable.
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The rest of math is overrated. Until I win the lottery, at which point I will be very interested in addition. Mostly to my bank account, but also the number of cars I own.
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And I’m sure Choppy will be interested in getting more bowls of food. And costumes. And more chew toys. Don’t forget about all the chew toys.
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All the chew toys. I can finally get rid of some of the de-squeaked ones as well. So I might have to learn subtraction as well.
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So much math. Can we just get an accountant for all that so we can do something more interesting like crash our Lamborghini’s and fall off the diving board of our pool?
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An accountant! I should have thought of this. The Lamborghini just won’t crash itself!
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I know right? We have more important things to do than count our cash. We need to get spending it!
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wow lol I thought New Jersey had the worst traffic, but yours sounds much much worse
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Who knows? I think everyone has their terrible traffic. Mine was just super irritating yesterday.
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Mine is super irritating every day lol
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Mine is always way worse, if I even leave 15 minutes later.
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