Diary of a Commuter vol 1

It’s funny how fleeting, yet profoundly intense, rage can be. Specifically road rage. It’s a snapshot, a quick glimpse, of the heart of darkness that dwells inside all of us. It’s scary how easily accessible this rage is. One doesn’t have to hack away dense foliage or traverse raging rivers in the deepest, darkest Congo to find this madness. It’s all right there, nestled within the cerebral cortex ready to strike, like the tongue of a chameleon. If one could crawl into the mind one might barely see it through the discombobulated undergrowth of criss-crossing psynapses, neurons, and rivers of gelatinous goo.

To get to the point, and this is true: while driving to work this morning some belligerent jackass in a minivan, whom I can only assume had far more important matters to attend to than anyone else tailgated me for about a mile. He then abruptly switched lanes to pass, no turn signal of course, and glared at me, shaking his head as he drove by, as though I was the one at fault. I was doing 80. The speed limit was 65. Something in me snapped. my judgement lapsed. At that very moment, the weight of the world was upon my shoulders and mine alone. It was my duty, my obligation to my fellow man and to God, to educate this piece of shit. I sped up alongside him and motioned for him to roll down his window. Predictably, he refused. I accelerated in front of him and swerved into his lane. I shouted at him to pull “the fuck over” as I flipped him the bird and threw empty Coke cans, fast food cups, and whatever other rubbish I could find in my car on his hood. He wouldn’t stop. Apparently he didn’t think about the consequences of his actions this morning. He didn’t anticipate he’d piss off the wrong guy, a guy who is standing on the very edge of reason fully prepared to leap. Had he of pulled over, I know I would have beaten or strangled him to death. I know I would have killed him.

Why? My plane to paradise has crashed and I’m stranded in the squalor of the sprawling, steaming, urban jungle, working the 9 to 5. Trying to survive the daily grind. I am a “Lord of the Flies” insurance and legal nightmare. I am Charles Bukowski shot full of steroids.