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Speedracer

I live in the DC area, and as most of you from this area know, the traffic sucks.  There aren’t too many other ways to describe it, although on “Dirty Sex Money” last week, Tripp Darling (Donald Sutherland) described NYC traffic as “demonic”…which comes close.  I live about 30 miles from my job, and even though it would be easier for either Justin or I to take the kids to daycare, we each take one child back-and-forth so that we can take advantage of the HOV-2 lanes on I-66 (for all of you not familiar…HOV stands for High Occupancy Vehicle).

So anyways, I live 30 miles from my job and use the HOV lanes with a 2-1/2 month old in the back.  Once I drop him off, however, the remaining 15 or so miles into my office is just awful.  I have to take SR-28 towards the airport.  That last leg of my trip takes me an hour.  An hour, people!  60 minutes for a whopping 15 miles!  And in the evening, the trip back isn’t much better…about 45 minutes just to get to daycare, then HOV saves me and I’m usually home within 25 minutes after picking up the baby.

As you can imagine, with sitting on the road doing 15 mph, I have a lot of time to ponder things.  Things like “where are all these stinkin’ people going?” and “why do all these people have to work in the same area I do?” or “why aren’t all these people already at work so that they’re out of my way?”  I also try to wile away the hours by listening to books, or thinking of dinner, or how I can get it timed right to be the first at the light so I can “race” the people in the lanes next to me.

Yep.  it’s that bad.

So last week I finally timed it right so that I was the first at the light.  I looked to my left…just a nasty, smelly, grossly overfilled dump truck.  To my right was a woman that I was sure was so old that I wasn’t sure she shouldn’t be driving.  *sigh*  Well, I’m so starved for fun and adventure that I went for it.  As I sat there in my old little cavalier (2.4 Liter, sport package, y’all!), I blasted my Maroon 5 CD, singing at the top of my lungs, with my messy uncombed hair beach-hair, and cheap sunglasses.  As the crossing traffic’s light turned yellow, I put my car in neutral and revved the engine a few times…giving that knowing glace to both the dump truck and the blue-hair in the Taurus next to me.  As soon as our light turned green, I peeled out of there!  Wouldn’t you know, the blue-hair had some kick in her legs (or the fact that her car had a larger engine).  I beat her off the line, but she caught up quickly.  I soon caught up and beat her to my exit ramp!!  I howled a sassy “in your face, granny!” as she continued on the road towards her destination….sadly, of course, since I won the race (at a whopping 40 mph)!

So watch-out DC, I’m out there racin’ and winnin’!  Next is the Indy 500!

About the Author

Colleen

This is a blog where I will share my adventures and mundane tasks as a work-out-of-home-mom. I now have 2 kids and my wonderful husband, so the juggling has gotten a little bit more tricky (man-on-man defense). We also have 2 dogs and 3 cats (we used to have 4) so as you can imagine, our household is pretty busy. Since I never feel like I'm being listened to, I figured I'll just start talking at the general Internet community and see what happens.

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