P52 Week 30 - Anger

Last week I got stuck in traffic.

I am used to Seattle traffic, after all it’s reported to be the third worst in the country. I usually suffer through the snarls and jams and idiot drivers with equanimity. I always allow extra time and crawl along the endless serpentines with the radio blaring, singing along with Maroon Five – Sugar, Yes Please – Taylor Swift – Shake It Off, Sam Smith and Pharrell Williams – Because I’m Happy…

Last week I got a pedicure. I’ve tried many local nail salons, but my favorite one is a little further away, the other side of Downtown, by the Seattle Center and the famous Space Needle.

Happy with my dark purple toes, and my loosened back that was pounded and slapped as I sat in the massage chair, I plop into my broiling car to head home.

“I’m good,” I think. “It’s mid afternoon. I’m ahead of the traffic.”

But Mercer Street is backed up all the way from the freeway to where I’m parked.

“I’ll go down to Elliot and take Hwy 99. That’ll be quicker,” I smile, congratulating myself for my ingenuity.

But every intersection is jammed. I inch along at a rate of one car length a minute.

“No worries,” I think to myself as I grip the steering wheel and perspiration pours down my back. I hate to turn on the air conditioner when the car is mostly idling – my car is older and I like to baby it.

“I can shake this off. I don’t have time constraints,” I reassure myself. “I can take in the surroundings. I can sway with the music, demonstrate to the drivers around me how relaxed I am.”

It takes me twenty minutes to drive five blocks and to merge to onto Elliot.

I’m no longer swaying to the music. In fact, I’ve shut the radio off. I’ve closed the windows and turned on the air conditioning. My shoulders and jaw have tensed.

I’m by the Old Spaghetti Factory on Elliot Avenue where I had dinner when it first opened decades ago.

I’m still by the same restaurant ten minutes later. It was a crap dinner and I’ve since divorced that husband, and the couple we dined with got divorced as well.

My lane of traffic hasn’t budged. The lane next to me is inching along. Grrr.

I boil over and smash my horn with a long blast. My lane begins to creep.

Several minutes later I have moved five more blocks and am approaching the Highway 99 entrance. I nudge my way into the onramp lane between two cars.

The woman I try to squeeze in front of blasts her horn, screams at me and gives me the finger.

Instant Karma.

I am humbled and I relax. My anger has completely dissipated.