I’m making an earlier commute this week. There are two reasons. First of all, you’d be surprised at the number of school buses in my neighborhood. Only two or three weeks ago, my morning drive was a consistent 15-minute trip, no matter what time I left the house. Now I have only a finite window, bordered by much-needed sleep on one side and a fleet of creeping yellow Bluebirds on the other. The second reason? The yearly ‘Con is this coming weekend, so I’m banking a little time at work. Projects are underway and I don’t want to return unprepared from Labor Day.
So there I am, safely out of my subdivision, down one road and onto another, when the traffic starts to slow. It’s a feeling, kind of like dread, but not as thick. We all know that lurching that comes with a just-developed traffic situation. And this was happening just a few cars in front of me on Old Alabama. From my point of view, there was a car stopped in front of the Publix shopping center, possibly stalled, certainly flashing hazards. What an unlucky place to drop, I thought. One by one, my fellow motorists renegotiate and creep around this black Volvo. Soon, it will be my turn. The car between me and the Volvo veers into the left lane, a turn lane, so I get to wait just a few seconds more. And then I see her.
She’s got a coffee cup in her hand. Starbucks. Funny, but it makes sense, because there’s a Starbucks right there in the shopping center. Where’s she going? You know, it looks like she’s walking right up to … well, I guess the black Volvo is her car. Imagine that. Maybe she just needed to step into the ‘Bucks on the corner to make a phone call and grabbed a cuppa for her nerves. Sure, that’s got to be … what?
And like nothing ever happened, she gets in her car, turns off her hazards and cruises on down the road.
