Day 176 - Commute Story

Commute Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Gabe hated sitting in traffic. He realized he wasn’t taking a controversial stand on the issue and this was a pretty common sentiment. He couldn’t imagine that anyone liked sitting in traffic. No one likes a line. No one liked not getting to where they wanted to go.

Gabe liked to watch the other drivers and look for creative ways to kill time. Phone calls were super common. Looks of frustration were everywhere. Some people daydreamed. Others bettered themselves by listening to audio books. Once, a man in the car next to Gabe sang highlights to the musical Les Misérables. Sometimes people were frightening – they read the paper while they drove or put on makeup. He had seen people change clothes while driving and perform two-handed activities like tying ties.  Once he had watched a couple make out. It seemed as if they were going to try and do more, but traffic started moving. Stuck in bumper-to-bumper idling traffic on the 10 freeway, Gabe had watched a man fight nodding off. The man pinched himself and slapped himself, but Gabe would later swear that for a full minute the man drove with his eyes closed. Gate was sure the man was asleep.

Traffic was the worst. Commuting to work everyday was the worst.

Gabe sat and watched as police closed off the road. Today was one of those days when an entire street across LA was shut down to allow only bicycles, walkers and pedestrian traffic. Today’s event would take place through an arts district. There would be street performers and vendors and local store owners would have plenty of chances to sell their chachkies to the day tourists. Some would argue this helped local commerce. Some would argue this helped the environment and kept cars off the road for one day. Some might argue it was a major annoyance and messed up traffic everywhere else in the surrounding city.

Gabe hated it. It was a headache. He hated not being able to go anywhere. He understood that five days a week he hated his car and hated his commute, but for two days a week he was supposed to do what he wanted to do. These people were ruining his day and it hadn’t even begun yet. In all honesty, he really had no plans to go anywhere and he certainly could have figured out a way across town that didn’t involve Melrose, but he really just wanted to be angry about something.

Gabe didn’t fully understand why he wanted to be angry, but he supposed it had something to do with not getting things he wanted, so he immaturely didn’t want other people to get what they wanted. Petty and juvenile, he knew, but that didn’t change the way he felt.

Gabe sat there and watched. He looked at the other people and killed time. He did a lot of sitting around wasting time. Why not do a little more? He was getting nowhere as fast as he could, but it was the commute that was really killing him.