How the Mind Races
Thursday, November 16, 2006 at 09:02PM I tend to be somewhat of a drama queen and alarmist. I get this from my mother. She was your typical Italian crepe hanger. If the phone rang anytime after midnight, she was in hysterics, running around with her hands on her head, her mind racing with funeral arrangements, only to answer the phone and hear, “Is your refrigerator running?” or “What color underwear you got on?” Still, after many years, that kind of behavior wears off on you, and thus you too end up being a melodramatic extremist. It’s in the genes. Taking all this into consideration, it should come as no surprise the kind of thoughts that go through my head, and yesterday, was no exception. During my commute into work, I do believe I reached new heights.
There are about two major spots along my new commute which bottleneck into stop and go traffic for about a mile. Today, however, I just zipped along through both spots. I never even had to down shift from fifth gear! This, I tell you, is an all time first since I started at this job. I left that morning at the same time I did every other morning, so that couldn’t explain the lack of traffic. As I whizzed by the second bottleneck spot at normal speeds, my mind started to race. I started to really wonder just what the hell was going on here. How could this anomaly be occurring?
My first thought was that is was some major holiday, and I just was unaware of it. Then a mini panic came over me as I realized it was Thursday and November, so it could be Thanksgiving. But, I quickly recovered from that, because now I don’t live alone in my own little world, but have a husband. He knows these sorts of things. He would have told me if this week was Thanksgiving.
My second thought was the plague. Everyone has been sick lately. I have been reading about all these sick people on their blogs, and Piper was just sick and it could happen without warning, you know. Naturally, I immediately maneuvered myself away from any other cars on the road. Last thing I needed was one of them swerving haphazardly into me as their driver lost consciouness, cause the plague works that fast. I have seen this happen in too many doomsday movies not to know better. I rolled up my window too, just in case. Germs.
But, just as I was starting to notice that my throat felt scratchy and I was getting kinda hot and sweaty myself, I noticed a woman drive by in the car beside me. She was singing at the top of her lungs in the most joyous fashion. After she passed me, I noticed the little fish icon on the back of her car. Another panic wave swept over me as I thought, “Could it be? No, but it could, you know. What if? Could it be… Judgment Day?” This, more than anything else, would explain why two thirds of the regular car population on the road had suddenly disappeared this morning. Vanished. I looked over to the North bound lane. They too were zipping along, and that direction usually went at a compete snail’s pace! I tried to calm down. Look for more signs. I peeked inside other car windows to scan for chaos, angst, anything on their faces. Unfortunately, I never bothered to replace my car stereo when my car was broken into three years ago. Otherwise, I would have been all over that radio looking for anything that could confirm my theory.
Trust me, when my mind goes on these tangents, I do realize that I am being extreme, but after 40 years of it, I tend to just go with the flow to some degree. And, really, one never does know, in the end. It is that tricky little “in the end” that gets me every time. Just when I tell myself I am being completely ridiculous, the other annoying voice reminds me of all the outlandish things that happened in my life, things which I never would have considered possible or seen coming. Judgment Day would rank up there for sure, I reasoned (if you could call it that). It could be possible, and sometimes that’s all you need at 8 AM with no stereo to distract you.
So, there I was slowly starting to panic. I didn’t know whether to be happy, sad, amazed, in shock, fearful, peaceful… Overall, I felt somewhat sad. If it really were Judgment Day, then I missed the opportunity to say good bye to so many people who would be gone now. That depressed me. To such a point, that I was relieved when I got into work and discovered everyone behaving completely normal. So normal, there was no way anything so spectacular could have happened and gone unnoticed.
All in all, I have no explanation for why my commute yesterday morning was so easy and the roads were near desolate. Luck? Fate? One minute difference in when I left? Who knows. I can rule out it being a major holiday, the plague or Judgment Day, though.
Later that night, when I was telling my friend about this experience, I casually mentioned that I needed to replace my car stereo. It is detrimental to my mental health to be without that human contact and distraction in the morning. I feel so out of touch at times like that. I mean, suppose it really did happen. I asked her, just how would I know if Judgment Day was suddenly upon us without a radio?
“By the flames of hell licking at your ass, I imagine.”
Reader Comments (10)
I swear there should be a category in the DSM called Religious Persecution Disorder. Many of us would qualify from our upbringings, alone.
You reminded me of an episode from 10 or 15 years ago. My husband was working with a church group. This particular group included some pretty WILD people (think ex-cons and ex-drug addicts turned Christian as well as a fair number of teenagers). Anyway, they were all traveling on a major freeway during rush hour in So-Cal in a school bus. One of the ex-con/ex-druggies was playing about and waving around a toy gun (this was before terrorism became quite the issue, but shame on him anyway). It didn't help that said pretend hijacker looked incredibly middle-eastern (though he was not). Evidently, someone driving by in a car saw this and called 9-1-1. Report to 9-1-1 went something like, "There is some crazy Arab hijacking a school bus full of children." Soon, my husband noticed that there were no other vehicles on the road. On the interstate. At rush hour. Hmmm. When he looked out the back end of the bus he was able to see many many Calif. Highway Patrol and other law enforcement vehicles following at a distance. To make a long story shorter, they were eventually pulled off of the interstate and surrounded by law enforcement with every kind of weapon imaginable pointed at them. All was straightened out within the hour and they were all allowed to go on their way.
In the meantime, I was at home and saw the BREAKING NEWS ALERT. A helicopter was following the interstate and keeping the camera on the bus with occasional pan outs to include all of the law enforcement. I have never in my life seen a freeway so empty.
So you see, Momish, you are not paranoid. These things happen ;-)
I have little moments like that--oh, is that an earthquake, etc. In my mind there are no small quakes only The Big One. It goes on... but I won't here! ;)
But I hope you're breathing a little more calmly now!