Almondillo

Thirty minutes.

This isn't an uncommon thing, these thirty minutes. I spent them today as I do most days, on I-40 or I-440. They are, if you are wondering, the thirty minutes in which traffic implodes on itself and I am left helplessly watching my fuel gauge die a painful death. Today,  I calmed myself with NC State's college radio station.*

I am tempted to restrain myself from going off on some witty rant about how much I hate Raleigh traffic because I'm sure we've heard or read all that somewhere else before. We are all well aware of the many manifestations of road woe, most of which has been better recounted by more capable writers, more capable bloggers, even more capable Sloans who also write blogs (example: my cousin's 2004 blog). In spite of this, I still have a rantacious itch after today.

So here is my beef - where is the payoff? I really just want a little payoff for the wait. I'll explain: if I'm going to wait for a half hour to merge onto I-40 from the beltline, I want there to be a sea of cars stretching out for miles before me when I get there. No, this isn't some sick traffic masochism, it's just because I find it almost as obnoxious to wait so long to make the merge and then watch as nothing else legitimately delay-worthy turns up. Within minutes I was zooming down the road not knowing who to be angry at and thus being angry at anyone driving near me - especially the guy with the gelled hair that looks like he's having a great day.

And what could be even worse than finding nothing at all? Finding that it was caused by a "wreck." Today the "wreck" that stopped traffic for TEN miles turns out to be a '98 SUV with a severely bent fender being eyeballed by two head-scratchers standing next to an similarly barely damaged Ford Crown Vic in the median.

Seriously? Who slows down to look at this? Is Monday night television failing you?

You know what wreck I would slow my car (and thus everyone behind me for miles) for? Maybe, maybe, this one:
An 18-wheeler, no, a 19-wheeler (why not?) with a flat bed carrying a blue whale skeleton being delivered to a museum in Maine collides with a oil tanker head-on and both of them slide into a firework truck which ignites and sends flaming, exploding whale remnants all over the highway and surrounding tree line.

As for the gentleman with the mildly inconvenient insurance claim ahead of him - yeah, I'm not impressed by your wreck, sir. My apologies.

*For those of you who listen to NC State Radio, does anyone else ever wonder if those "DJ's" really know what's going on? I'm not talking about on their show, during which they are obviously clueless, I'm just talking about life in general. Like, I'm not sure they know where they put the shoes they wore last night. If nothing else they do know one thing - How to find the single from that one band with the moaning lady in the background layered behind three lead guitars and a techno drum beat. On lockdown.