Commuting

Most everyone that knows me knows I work at Disney. Disney's Animal Kingdom to be exact. I'm fortunate enough to be able to work early morning hours and get off around two to three in the afternoon. Ive been doing this for the last several years. Most mornings it's pitch black as I make my way to work. My average start time is around 6 am so as you can imagine it's pretty dark on my way into work in the morning. It definitely has it advantages. There's very little traffic to worry about. I live exactly 8.4 miles to Animal Kingdom and travel through a whopping 12 traffic lights. It usually takes me about 15 minutes to get to work in the morning at that hour. Cruising in in the mornings I usually hit 4 or 5 of those lights red, the rest I sail through. But yesterday I had a different experience. I was working a overtime shift at Down Town Disney which started at 8:30 am. No big deal I thought to myself. I can actually even sleep in a little I had told myself. Wow! What a difference driving to work a couple hours later can make. First off, I was reporting to Down Town Disney so that adds about 7 miles to my trip. Not much right? BUT, the traffic lights count from my place to DTD jumps up to 23! Almost double what I normally do. And oh yeah, I caught just about everyone of them red. Thankfully, I had woke up the same time I normally do (4 am) and got up and showered and had my morning coffee ( yes, master chef for you long time readers) and was ready to go with plenty of time to spare. Thank goodness! It was a truly unique experience driving to work with the sun up. Normally, all I see of the other cars is head and tail lights. With it being light I could actually see the person driving the car. And since I had so many opportunities to be stopped on the road with other cars I began to take note of my fellow commuters. If I had to guess percentages I would guess about 60 percent of the people were using a cell phone. About half of those 60 percent were texting, the other half were talking. Now Ive always wondered who do these people talk to so early in the morning? Can't it wait till noon or even later in the morning? Do these people leave the house and say I'll call you as soon as I get on the road. And what do you talk about? Do you tell the person how you slept? Describe a dream? Talk about some kind of breakfast fantasy your having? I just don't get it. Maybe their really not even talking to someone but just want to LOOK like they have someone to talk to. Then there was around 30 percent of the drivers having those morning cigarettes. I mean really having their morning smokes. Pulling a hard drag in and leaning their head back as the nicotine started coursing its way though the smokers brain and body. Ahhh, I remember those days quite well. I started remembering back to when I myself was a nicotine fiend, a slave to the weed. The smoker usually gets up and has a smoke to "get their head right". Then you get ready for work, hop in the car and have a good old smoke fest the whole way to work. Gotta get that nicotine level back up to where you feel almost able to function. And then there's that stop at the store to get your one or two packs for the day. I pity those people that still use tobacco with the prices as high as they are and the people KNOWING uncle sam is making soooo much tax revenue off of them and they just keep feeding the machine. But that's a whole other story. Probably 50 percent of the people were drinking something, including me. I drink and love coffee and most people that know me know that I LOVE it. Ive told friends and family that Ive quit a lot of things but when I have to give up the coffee then just put me down. Can't do without it. But not all of those 50 percent of people were drinking coffee. Some had sodas. One guy that looked like he probably topped out at about 600 pounds had one of those mega big gulp plastic cups that hold like 70 some ounces of cold, icy soda. GROSS! No wonder the guy looked like he would need the jaws of life to exit his car. Then there were the road racers. Driving like manaics, cutting in and out of the traffic only to get to the next red light. Like if they got up to 70 mph between red lights they would somehow make better time then all the rest of us. Some people looked dazed, like they hadn't had nearly enough sleep. Some were smiling, looking as if they had gotten a full nights rest. Many were frowning, looking stressed out as they thought about their lives. I wanted to say "Smile! All of us out here driving had woke up this morning, some people weren't that fortunate, and the suns up and we all have jobs that we can drive to and indulge in whatever habits we have. Smoking, drinking caffeine in one form or another, sharing a needless phone conversation with someone. Drive with a somewhat fair degree of road rage, whatever!" The important thing was we had awoke and we were lucky to have a job we could commute too!