So. If things go well, I’ll be moving closer to work within a month. This will eliminate about 2½-3 hours of driving everyday. Yes. I know. I’m crazy to be making that kind of a commute, and don’t think I haven’t already heard that from everyone else around me.

The new place is actually just down the road from where I work, and I never again have to set rubber on the freeway at all if I don’t want to, but frankly, I will miss driving on the freeway. Why? Because I’m one of those people who would rather use the freeway to get to a place only five miles away, even if it’s less straight-line than a set of surface streets. I like the absence of traffic lights and the lack of stop-and-go movement from the cars around me.

I have an aunt who is the complete opposite. She’d rather take the surface streets, even if her destination is across town, past dense areas where traffic moves like snails. I remember riding with her and my cousin on what should have been a brief jaunt to the library. What took me 8 minutes to drive took her at least 30 minutes to drive. It was frustrating for me to watch from the back seat, but that’s just how she is; the freeways scare her something fierce.

But not me. No. The freeways are my haven. They’re there; I use them; and I use them well. I don’t get on the freeway to drive 45-50 mph in front of a long line of cars; I get on it to get where I’m going now.

I will never understand those that get on the freeway and drive like they’re driving Miss Daisy. That’s like being able to run like the wind and taking a nap on your way to the finish line in a race. I mean, if it were up to me, I’d have slapped that stupid hare upside the head for letting the tortoise beat him. He had it all. He had it nailed. Then he pulled off the side of the freeway and napped. Silly rabbit.

But after the move, I’ll have to be like the tortoise, a slave to the pace of the surface streets. No longer will my foot be forever glued to the gas pedal; it will rise and fall alternately between the gas and the brake pedals. Stop. Go. Stop… and go.

I sometimes find myself driving excruciatingly slow when on surface streets, just so I never have to step on the brake. Never. Not just because slow and steady wins the race, but because I can’t stand stopping-and-going. It’s too much like the tortoise pulling off to the side of the road and napping.

Please, people… just keep it moving!

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