Public Transportation – Oh How I Long For Thee

Unlike Zeyn, I’m normally pretty good with traffic.  Whereas he curses, gets angry, and swears that he will never again drive anywhere (he has a DB card and a city train pass to prove it), I usually laugh.  If the music is good and I’m not in a hurry, traffic is traffic.  Getting angry and honking the horn won’t move it faster.  Those horn waves won’t blow a path in front of you no matter how loudly one honks or how many times.  It’s just how it is. 

Now, let me tell you other things which won’t help traffic.  Imagine, if you will, a 4 lane road, 2 lanes going North and 2 lanes going South.  Now, go ahead and mix in some road construction on the Northbound lanes and what do you have?  A grandiose stau (that’s German for traffic jam).  Okay, now to make things really interesting, go ahead and turn those two Northbound lanes into 4 lanes and then, just for the heck of it, encroach into the oncoming traffic so that there are now 6 lanes of traffic trying to go one direction and one 1/2 lane trying to come from the opposite direction.  Don’t forget that those 6 lanes are all going to need to merge together again at some point…

Not enough visuals for you? Okay, how about this? You’ve made it to your destination, done what you needed to do (which took all of 2 minutes) and now need to get back out into the traffic, this time into the one 1/2 lane.  So, you set off only to be directed to a detour.  This detour consists of a 2 lane road, one lane going each way.  After sitting in one of these lanes you notice the other lane remains empty for long stretches at a time.  Although you’re curious about why this is, you know that you can’t go into this lane because it’s for oncoming traffic.  So, you sit.  And then you notice that there are those people behind you who decide that it’s okay for them to use the other lane.  So, they do.  You are then relieved to see them stop (as you move in your lane up to where they are) due to a large truck wanting to use that lane.  So, one by one each car must reverse and get off the road to let the truck pass.  Terrible is the jam created behind the truck.  However, you cannot help but smile at the poetic justice of those cars getting pulled aside and no one, really, no one letting them merge again.  It does a heart good.

I will tell you what all of this has taught me.  One, I am not as immune to the absolute annoyances of traffic as I thought.  My 18km (11mi) (round trip) adventure which took me a mere 3 hours (sorry, I exaggerate, it was closer to 2 hours and 45 minutes) really wore me down.  Now, granted, I had no good music on the radio to listen to, that might have been a contributing factor.  All I had was the texts I was sending to the Jackass (aka Adams) relaxing on my couch and telling me how nice and comfy he was.  Second, I learned something about horn blowing.  There is a bit of aggression that you can release in honking that horn.  All of that built up anger gets a little bit released when you honk it to let the taxi cab driver (who is getting closer and closer to your vehicle because he’s not watching) know that “hey you @#$%@ I’m right here and don’t you dare hit me with that %#$#$ piece of trash that you call an auto because I will plow that @#$# @#$# wreck of yours to the ground…”  Uh, or something like that…

I know that traffic exists like this everywhere in the world.  Well, I’m not sure about the randomly turning sidewalks and parking lots into lanes part, but, whatever.  My final lesson, or, epiphany, was that I really couldn’t do this everyday.  I would go postal.  I may, when I get back to Germany, only ride my bike into work. Or better yet, buy a yearly train pass, pray that the railworker strikes are at a minimum, and learn the bus and train schedule.  I think it would save my sanity, which by the time I returned to the office after my driving adventure, was nearly gone.  Thankfully, Adams was able to get up from the couch long enough to chill some wine (thus the reference to his “actual” name vice “Jackass) which I happily imbibed upon returning home.   I don’t know how people do this all of the time.  There’s some kind of fortitude/patience required that I don’t seem to possess.  So, in reference to my hubby, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  I can see it already, we’ll have matching train passes and sit side by side as we read our IHT on our iPhones on the ride to work.  It will be, can you picture it? Precious…