TRAFFIC WOES

I dropped my boy off at school today, as I often do, as it gives us time together in the wee hours, when our minds are just warped enough to have us laughing uncontrollably before we get halfway to school. The morning minds have come up with such classics as "Grandma McDelbert's Whistling Fart Machine" and "The Island that floods weekly, and the natives language is composed mostly of lies."

You can see why we enjoy this early a.m. "slap-happy" time.

This morn though, it was ruined on the way home by some inconsiderate petulant child, who felt the overwhelming desire to tailgate the crap out of me, despite the fact that I was going three miles an hour over the speed limit. I had gotten cranky, because after Aidan got out of the car, my mood dampened, (as it often does when he's no longer around) I was over-caffeinated, in need of anti-anxiety meds, and had Fugazi's "Steady Diet of Nothing" blasting out of all four of my cars speakers.

That's a cocktail for doom.

I started to consider brake-tapping, which would have led to honking, then to gestures, eventually to me pulling over and ending this shit once and for all, for it was also boring me.   But I held it in, I perservered, because I breathed deeply, thought of the nonsense between me and my kid just merely moments earlier, bringing my missing smile back, and when that mental jackmidget passed me, I merely glared.

Hard.

You see, it's gotten hard to let go.

Aidan's done a piece on Dylan Thomas poetry for school lately, and "rage" is a big fixture in some of his most largely known works. It's also a word I find myself rolling around between my mental fingertips.

This isn't a good thing. I don't want to be a virulent, reactionary, violent person. I don't want to bark, snap, and retch bile at those who wrong me, even if they may deserve it. Don't get me wrong, crabbiness has had a tendency to be part of my modus operandi from my teenage years on, but this is different.

This is black.