An Amazon Prime Truck

It’s big, it’s blue, it’s Bezos’s best, and it’s parked in the middle of the freakin’ road, daring other drivers to play chicken at the crest of a hill.

Apparently above the law, the Amazon Prime truck can park anywhere it damn well pleases and is never at threat for impeding traffic.

And “parked” is probably the wrong word. Abandoned is more like it. It sits there abandoned in the lane as if Bezos himself paid off the local PD.

Who knew that ordering with convenience is, in the end, anything but.

The Mail Truck

It’s small. It’s boxy, and it apparently has no aftermarket for people to buy used ones.

You can count on the mail truck — mortal enemy of the Amazon Prime truck — to be there when you’re in a hurry and there’s oncoming traffic.

The problem with the mail truck is nobody knows if he’s stopping or if he’s going. And anytime you guess, you guess wrong.

Now you’re behind him doing the slowest parade in American history, crawling down the street at a speed normally reserved for funeral processions and people looking for their lost cat.

Bonus points if you’re stuck behind him and it’s snowing with oncoming traffic, which gives new meaning to the phrase “going postal.”

Construction

You see the cones first.
Then the signs.
Then the bellies.

And finally, the bridge game: five to seven men and women gathered around a bridge, one holding a shovel while the others watch him hold a shovel.

Other countries can fix a road in one month flat.

But out here, construction is a never-ending process. The same stretch of road will be under construction so long you start recognizing the cones like old friends.

“Ah yes,” you think, “the dented one near the pothole. Still leaning a little to the left. We’ve all been there.”

Nothing is ever complete.

It’s the greatest hoax in history.

Bonus points for an abrupt merge where one lane suddenly disappears and two lines of drivers have to negotiate whose childhood taught them how to zipper merge and whose didn’t.

A Bicyclist

Part man. Part spandex.

The bicyclist is cursed, believing he is a car.

He looks over his shoulder, and even though you can’t see his eyes behind the wraparound sports glasses, you know they’re narrowing, wondering why you would possibly be on his road.

You move to pass, but he leans left, just a little, the way someone might casually bump someone at a table while simultaneously threatening your driver’s license.

Now you’re creeping past at twelve miles an hour, praying he doesn’t wobble, sneeze, or suddenly remember he left something back there.

Meanwhile, twenty cars behind you are learning new and creative ways to hate you personally.

Someone Crossing Without a Crosswalk

They had the option.

Hell, they had two options — the crosswalk behind them and the crosswalk in front of them.

But this fool decides that right here, directly in the middle of four lanes of moving traffic, is clearly the best place to cross.

They step into the road slowly, confidently, like someone testing bathwater. One foot. Pause. Other foot. Pause.

A brief glance that somehow communicates both awareness and complete indifference to the twelve cars now frozen in their lanes, engines idling, drivers gripping steering wheels with both hands for the first time all year.

Cars brake. Drivers lean forward.

The pedestrian reaches the median and stops to check their phone.

A Slow Driver

You’re minutes from home.

One highway merges into another, and you spot the brake lights stacking up ahead — a long red ribbon of people who also had somewhere to be.

You shift lanes trying to find the source. You’re convinced it’s the third car up. You curse them silently and adjust your seat to get a better look.

Then they move left and reveal the culprit: one driver going three miles under the speed limit, both hands at ten and two, completely at peace with themselves and the world — and the fact that you are directly behind them, slowly losing your mind.

The kind of driver who might pull into a scenic overlook on the highway just to think about clouds.

Shame.

A Fast Driver

They’ve got somewhere to be.

Now.

They speed and dance between traffic like they’re playing a video game, cutting lanes with the precision of someone who has genuinely never considered that other drivers are real people with families and blood pressure.

If you make the mistake of signaling a lane change, watch them accelerate to close the gap — not out of malice exactly, but out of a deep biological need to not be behind you.

You merge anyway.

They pass you three seconds later, gone, swallowed up by traffic somewhere ahead, presumably to sit at the same red light as everyone else.

And when you catch up, you exchange the traditional gestures of the road, a silent language every driver somehow learns by age sixteen.

Traffic Itself

You’re in your car, complaining about traffic while contributing to traffic.

You can’t believe this many people have somewhere to be. Who are these people? What are they doing? Why in the hell are they all here?

It takes a moment before the uncomfortable thought appears:

They’re probably wondering the exact same thing about you.

You shake your head.

Burning.

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