The traffic report

I’ve recently taken to traffic reports. I need to know what’s going on. Am I going to have a longer commute? And if so, why exactly and where exactly? This is a recent phenomenon. I turn the radio on in the morning, and as I’m getting ready, catch myself making faces in the mirror...backed up for four miles? Scrunchy face and nose. Or ice on overpasses. Rolling of the eyes...tell me something I didn’t know.

And I have to admit, I find great satisfaction when the hold ups do not include my freeway or affect me, but rather those poor suckers down in Burnsville or Eden Prairie (or Apple Valley, a shout out to Hey! Your Blinker’s On at heyyourblinkerson.blogspot.com ). Ha! Glad it’s not me, I think to myself as I smilingly continue on my merry 70-mph way.

Within weeks, I’ve become addicted. I feel completely unawares if I do not have my morning commute information fix. Yesterday I was warned before I left the house that a semi truck carrying live pigs—as in oink oink—had overturned on my route. And in fact, pigs were running loose. As you can imagine, traffic was stopped, wondering: why did the hog cross the road? So I smartly took a round-about way, feeling very proud of myself for tuning in to the traffic report.

But other times, most of the time, there’s simply no way around the hold up, no short cuts. Ya just gotta go through it...slowly. There are only a couple places along my daily commute where there’s detour potential. Otherwise, it’s a straight shot down the freeway, so if there’s any commotion, I’m screwed.

There were three accidents on my way to work this morning. And a huge one on the same freeway going the other way—in fact, they had to airlift someone from that site. And ridiculously, as I sat in the parking lot they call 694 this morning, I couldn’t help but smile and nearly wave to my next-door driver because I had listened to the traffic report. Good thing! I mean, I knew exactly what was going on and where, and it had gotten me really far! Right next to the driver who hadn't listened to the report.