Monday August 10^th

10:20 A.M.

Every morning it was the same f***ing sh*t ass routine. Stick the key in the ignition and listen to some strange noise shooting out the back of the car.  Today's mystery sound was two fold, a loud explosion along with the clank of some unknown engine part hitting the pavement which was followed by a visual spectacle of a ball of flame belching out the exhaust pipe.  An auto fart you might call it from putting in too much cheap gas with low octane.  On the next turn of the key, the car farted again, dropped some other unknown part onto the ground and then slowly began to sputter to life.  Thanking God, I threw the car into reverse and backed down the driveway.

Getting to the Beltway was the easy part. 

At 10:20am, almost everyone who had a job was already there.  The only people left on the road were the ones who were late and at legitimate risk of losing their jobs, and the already unemployed like me who were driving like hell to kiss some ones ass to get a job.  I looked at the wall of cars creeping along the concrete pretzel leading to the highway and debated with myself on whether or not I should just give up, turn back and go home to watch Oprah.  Before I could decide however this ass hole from behind slams into my rear forcing me onto the entrance ramp.

I looked into my rear view mirror to see the f*** face that had hit me and saw a cocky yuppie sipping a Starbucks and driving a nice new BMW SUV the size of a bunker.  As our eyes made contact, I knew deep in my soul that I could not allow this particular driver, this piece of scum to arrive in tact at his destination today.  Just because my car wasn't moving fast enough didn't give this f****ing bastard the right to smack into my rear.      

Looking around to make sure that he was properly boxed in, I slammed on my brakes screeching my car to a halt.  Gleefully I watched as the ass hole behind me swerved to avoid hitting me, spilling what I hoped was a scalding hot latte all over his face, and then driving right into the line of traffic coming off the Beltway.  I watched in the rearview mirror as his car was pounded into a smoldering heap and pushed over to the side of the road.  For the first time that morning I smiled, knowing that I had done good and continued on my way.

There were cars all slowly creeping in every direction.  Every once in a while you might see some old relic of an American car heaving and sputtering down the road, belching huge clouds of exhaust into the already smoke filled air.  I drove one of those old relics, a 1967 Buick Skylark.  Not because it was a classic, mind you, but because I couldn't afford anything else.  Anyway, as I sputtered down the road, I looked for a gap in the traffic so that I could squeeze my car into the bumper to bumper stream of traffic.

Unfortunately, there were two other cars lurking in the shadows with their drivers scanning for the same gap that I was looking for.  There was a red neck in a bubba pickup truck covered in NASCAR stickers to my left and a snob looking foreigner in a yellow Caddy with diplomatic plates to the right.  I looked at them and they looked at me.  As we stared each other down we all knew that it was damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

Suddenly, up ahead, I saw a car that for no apparent reason burst into flames and roll abruptly to a stop.  As the burning driver bailed out of the car and began rolling on the ground to extinguish the flames on his body, I slammed my foot into the gas pedal so hard that I thought my foot was going to go through the fire wall and my lumbering vehicle surged forward into the gap this poor slob unfortunate slob had created in the traffic stream. 

As my car slid into the opening I watched as my counterparts collided with each other trying to muscle into the half space that was behind me.  The burning guy rose, no longer on fire but still smoldering, only to be scooped up and thrown to the side of the road by a massive dump truck equipped with a snow plow on the front of his truck.

Looking away from this tragic scene of Beltway horror, I saw another as some other poor slob on the side of the road struggled to remove a blown out tire from the front of his car.  I turned my head for only a second to avoid a collision with a harvester combine, then looked back to see that the guy changing his tire was gone. 

At the time I didn't really think too much about it.  He probably went to the back of his car to get some tools.  A few minutes later when I passed another guy scrapping something that looked like road kill off the front of his car with a stick, I realized the true reality of the situation of where the tire guy had gone.

This gruesome sight broke my concentration just long enough for a speeding Toyota to take me by surprise, side-swiping me off the road.  I swerved to avoid a collision and watched as the driver of the Toyota broadsided a gasoline truck which burst into flames, effectively closing down three of the four lanes of the Beltway. Trying to maneuver my car so that I could get through the one open lane without getting fried, I watched as two other guys tried to do the same thing and collided, shooting two little mini fire balls into the already smoke filled air.  Now all of the lanes were effectively blocked, leaving me and thousands of people stranded and late for wherever it was that we were supposed to be.

I could have run to my interview, but there was no need to add a heart attack to what was already proving to be another cracker-jack day.  Then just as I'm about to give into the situation, I see this guy headed my way on a ten speed bike.  As he came up beside my car, I quickly opened the door and listened as the guy smacked right into it and fell to the ground.  Seeing that the guy was knocked out cold, I got out, picked up the bike, and threw it in the back seat and got back in my car. 

Making sure not to run the poor knocked out slob over, adding homicide to the growing list of felonies I was in the process of committing, I pulled my car onto the shoulder and drove backwards till I got to a small cornfield and backed my car into the corn husk effectively concealing it from the main road.

Hoping that no one had seen me, I got out and scanned the surroundings taking note of where my car was so that I could find it later.  Then, I got the bike out of the back of my car, slid my ass onto the tiny seat and started pedaling my way toward a job interview that by now was probably a f***ed prospect.

At the top of the ramp, I paused for a moment to view the chaos behind me.  The fire from the gasoline truck let forth a merry glow as frustrated drivers began to riot, taking out their frustration by pounding the sh** out of the truck driver who had been dragged out of his cab and was on the ground cowering and fending off blows. 

With the gasoline truck burning in the foreground, the view took on surrealistic over tones.  I could see these little guys on top of their little cars pounding each others faces in, as a crowd of frustrated drivers cheered them on from the side of the road.  A true to life “Mad Max” moment.  As this event unfolded in front of me, I looked down at the bike I was riding and suddenly felt very ashamed about what I had done to get it.