This morning, it was snowing up here in northern New Jersey. While I was waiting at the train station, the snow was light and lovely. I could see individual snowflakes against my black coat and gloves; I just stood there on the platform, staring down at my sleeve and gloves and marveling at how perfect they all were and how this is just how the weird science of water works. I got so caught up in that quasi-meditation that I didn’t totally realize that the train was REALLY late. They didn’t make an announcement on the platform, so that also kept me from breaking the spell.

Then one of the other “regulars” on the train line walked down to where I was standing with some other peeps and said that he had just checked the NJ Transit website and found out that the train was running 40 minutes late. That meant that if I waited for the train and then had the 45-50 minute ride in, I’d end up 90 minutes late for work. No thank you, thought I, and decided to drive in.

Oh, what folly! Silly me! Thinking that a TINY bit of snow wouldn’t make people into idiots… thinking that I’d get into work by my usual time like I normally do when I drive in.

There was no accident, no reason for going less than 5 miles an hour for a long stretch of three-lane highway. I started watching the clock and the odometer and at one point, it took 7 minutes to go 1 mile. It took an hour to make the 20 mile drive. I wasn’t stressing, but I was just wondering what was going on. And there was really nothing. At one point, the traffic just eased up and that was that. Smooth sailing.

I did get to sit in traffic behind one of the most Jersey things I’ve seen in ages. Also, one of the most motarded things I’ve seen in ages. A black Hummer H2 in front of me, with a huge Superman logo decal on the rear window, STRIPED in the colors of the ITALIAN FLAG. What??? Was I driving behind an NJ guido with superpowers of some sort? Could he have been a Catholic Republican who has no problem with conspicuous consumption and his car’s ridiculous fuel expenditure?? Sadly, I never got to catch sight of the offending driver in his mirror (though the profile and haircut indicated that it was male). That was just one of those things that threw me into automatic “overly-judgmental” mode. But everything was fine; I didn’t actually freak out over anything.

Well, except for the near miss. There is a relatively sharp curve on the road at one point. I was in the center lane and had cars on both sides. The road curves to the left, and the car in the left lane took that turn a little too quickly and a little too sharply, and swerved into my lane suddenly. I swerved to avoid him (not enough to go into the other lane, thankfully, but enough to scare the shit out of me) and felt the car starting to skid, so I hit the brakes (knowing that it was OK to do this since I have ABS on this car, thankfully… yay, extra safety package!) and felt the thumpity-thump of the ABS and regained control of the car and my stomach. That was fun.

My work day was pretty darn good and that was nice. Less stressful.