It's That Time of Year Again

That time of year when my morning commute gets that much ickier, and parking at the Metro parking lot fills up that much faster – that’s right, it’s the end of summer. Everyone is back at work, and apparently they’re all so bitter about not being on vacation anymore that they’ve decided leaning on horns in the middle of a traffic jam is the only way to express their angst. Which is unfortunate, because that’s just about the least helpful thing you can do, and is guaranteed to make someone like me, who really tries to be accepting of my traffic time but has a low irritation threshold, get edgy. (Oh, let’s just say it – pissed off.)

Then you have monumentally unhelpful things like police stand-offs on the Beltway, as happened this morning. It didn’t affect me, because I took the Metro and only had to do some Rockville Pike time (which wasn’t a picnic, but wasn’t shut down, either. It only felt that way.), but people were calling in to various radio shows, talking about seeing police ducking between cars with guns drawn, and the rocket scientists who decided to get out of their cars to see what was happening.

Um…you already know what’s happening – there are police officers with guns drawn crouching behind their cars so they don’t get shot. Unless you’re watching it on TV, you don’t need to see more than that. Because, since the Beltway is shut down, it’s going to take a while for the ambulance to come get you after you get shot.