Holiday rage

Nothing brings on pure, blinding, irrational rage and anti-social attitude quite as quickly or completely as holiday traffic. For anyone reading this outside the States, this Monday is Labor Day. In true American fashion, though, one day simply isn't enough to show our love of all things summer (I'll talk about that in another post), so we use the entire weekend for car sales, mattress sales, and booze sales. Seems less like a farewell to summer and more a reveling in consumerism.

I mistakenly thought that today, Friday, midday, would be safe to run some of the errands that I needed to get done. Stores will be crazy this weekend with bargain hounds and people getting the makings for their last bbq of summer, but people work Friday, right?

No, apparently not. Apparently the traditional 3-day weekend has oozed over onto Friday as well. Normally, people are- generally speaking- horrendous drivers. Most of the time I'm stunned that half the people on the road ever got their license because it seems they just don't understand the concept of lanes, brakes, speed limits, and especially turn signals. Couple that with the heat index, oncoming storm fronts, and holiday brain it's amazing that anyone is surviving. Thank goodness it's not a full moon! Although, living in a city whose infrastructure was built for a fraction of the people now living here really doesn't help matters. I'm pretty sure the city planner had his 5 year old play roller coaster tycoon and then based the layout of the city on the outcome.

I'm now scared to pick my son up from school today. The radical lane changes, wondering shoppers, and clucking women- honestly, there was a group of 3 women in Home Goods that were trying to drive the world insane with their incessantly inane chatter- have made my eye twitch. Literally.

The best part? I still have to do groceries. I'm holding out until Monday. It may be a mistake; the one that finally pushes me over the edge. I can't face Wal-Mart right now, though. Just the thought of it makes me physically ill. I'm going to sit here, in the air conditioning, drinking my coke, and I'll probably do some sculpting. Later, I'm going to try cognac for the first time. And I'm going to pretend that Wal-Mart doesn't exist. Pretend that I have servants who do the chores that threaten the last scraps of sanity that I clutch on. Pretend that when I don't have any other choice but to go, it won't be as bad as it normally is.

One thing: I have a bottle of Laphroaig. Mmmmm....