There's a message in here somewhere
by Matt Worley

On my way into work yesterday morning (at the ungodly hour of 5:45 a.m.), a white-tailed rabbit hopped across my path. I paused for just a second, trying to remember if it was still Friday the 13th or that strange occurrence's older brother, Saturday the 14th. The rabbit looked at me for a minute and then hopped unhurriedly along. I have a feeling the rabbit had something to do, but it wasn't feeling any kind of extra stress to get it done right then. Besides, how many times does the rabbit hop in front of a zombie-like human on his way into work? But reflection is not one of the best things to do on an early Saturday morning (it usually leads the firm conclusion that I should still be in bed), so I had to move on inside the building to face the 2 1/2 hour long not-so-frenzied rush to deadline.

After a short morning of work (only one edition on Saturdays--the most logical day of the week at the paper), I set off for my mid-morning/early-afternoon nap. The commute takes around fifteen minutes in the early morning (not counting the strange phenomena of isolated time zones: it is 5:30 at my house, but 5:40 at the paper), but a little longer on the way home. More people are running around, trying to get things done. But yesterday, there was something else in the air: a sense of urgency.

About half the cars on the road wanted to get where they were going much quicker than the rest of the pack. I'm not one of those slow drivers, but I'm not an irrational speeder. I tend to cruise around 40 mph no matter where I happen to be (excluding parking lots, school zones and freeways). To a few drivers, this may seem a bit excessive in the city. To others, I'm still going glacially slow. What these impatient people don't seem to realize is that their frenzied attempts to find the good lane slows everyone else down more because people are scared. They are scared they'll get in a wreck, that the seatbelt won't work or that they won't be able to get that special camcorder on sale at only fifteen or so electronic stores around the city. Y'know those slow downs where you can't figure out why the traffic slowed down (no green light, no ambulance)? That's because someone changed lanes and scared the hell out of the other people at the front of the line.

I accidentally (after my nap) took a bad route to the liquor store yesterday. I used the road that runs between two of our three large malls. The absurdity of having two large shopping complexes within two blocks of each other aside, it took about ten minutes to go ten city blocks. I realized my mistake quickly and resigned myself to the fate of inching along through crowds of shoppers. Of course, there were others who didn't take the slow down as easily as myself. In particular, a small black car was quite agitated. Every time they slowed to a stop, the horn was honked. Even at stop lights. After the fourth time, I started looking for my machine gun button--unfortunately my built-in machine gun turrets (and controller switch) were stolen along with my car stereo a few months earlier. There was a great relief and silent rejoicing screams as I turned back into my driveway. All the people in my head were quite happy to be safely home once again.

I would love to stay inside and just watch TV for the rest of the shopping season, but even that is just too hectic. "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" and "A Christmas Story" have been playing so much (the count is now in the low twenties), it's as if the traffic jam has entered my TV just to fit in with the outside world. Maybe I'll just take another nap.

Matt Worley is currently sleeping.

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