Road Rage

Dear Friend,

Traffic is the worst. Regardless of if you are on time or late, being stuck traffic is never fun. Especially when you are driving in a stick shift which you still are not 100% comfortable with, it is pouring, and everyone seems to think that it is a wonderful idea to stop right in front of you, on a hill, for prolonged periods of time. In the midst of my annoyance, my friend told me that the reason for the month after month construction on our commute is because of salmon. Yep. Salmon. I'm all for preserving nature and what have you, but for a place on the highway that I didn't even know passed over a river, salmon construction should not take 3 months. This happened to me (Kylie) this morning. My carpool buddy was privy to my long rant that basically went something like this:

"Why are we stopping. No. You are dumb. CALM YOURSELF DOWN. Oh. FINE. That's a good thing to do right now. I love it when cars are--WHAT ARE YOU DOING OH MY LORD I HATE YOU I HATE RAIN I HATE SALMON I HATE PEOPLE I HATE AMERICA."

By the time I got to school, my left leg was sore from the clutch and my tea was cold. Not a very good way to start a Tuesday. I am usually an annoyingly positive person, but bad drivers on slick roads can turn my mood around. I don't have road rage like some people do. I won't start flipping people off, or making jerk moves. I just start talking and talking and talking. How do you handle your road rage?

Here are 10 tricks to help the next time you find yourself being stalled for annoying reasons:

1. Take a deep breath. Remember that things can always be worse. You could be on the side of the road in a ditch. At least you are still in a warm car. At least you are still alive. At least you have 5 fingers on each hand. At least you have an above average number of legs (Think about it. People with 1 leg bring the average down by some amount of decimals. Regardless of the amount, the average number of legs is less than two. If you are driving a car, you probably have two legs, meaning that you are ABOVE AVERAGE!). At least you have your license!

2. Remember something happy in your life. Sort of like when Harry Potter is trying to conjure a patronus charm. Imagine yourself being faced with dementors and every person around you is a muggle. In order to cast this spell you have to think of your happiest memory. What would you think of?

3. Listen to some music. Soft music is good if you tend to the angrier, more aggressive side, but if you choose the right song, you can imagine yourself in an exciting action movie. Try singing along.

4. Tweet about how bad your life is. Only joking. Never ever text and drive. Have your friend tweet about how bad your life is. Or start drafting the tweet in your head that you will write once you are safely parked about how bad your life is.

5. Play with all of the settings in your car. Calculate how many combinations of venting/temperature/circulation etc. you can have in your car. Challenge yourself to find one thing about your vehicle that you weren't aware of before.

6. Listen to NPR.

7. Try to convince the person in the car next to you that you are a CIA agent. Sunglasses optional. Note: remember that the guy next to you could be a loon with a gun. Use wise freedom.

8. Try to not stop. If the car in front of you is stopped, stay behind them far enough that you can creep up until they start to move again. Note: This may annoy other drivers.

9. Have window races if you are in a carpool. At random times yell "1-2-3 WINDOW RACE" and whoever rolls their window down all the way and back up wins. You can play this game by yourself as well, although that is sad and pathetic.

10. Think WWKCD? What would Kylie and Catherine do?

Best of luck on the roads! Stay safe!

"I also think stress is related to control. When you're in charge of your life, you tend to not care about losing control of things that don't really matter like traffic jams." -Marilu Henner

Yours truly,
Kylie and Catherine