Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng

Two hours on I-10 yesterday just trying to get home. It seems that even though we live on the gulf coast, water from the sky freaks people out to the point that they drive five miles per hour or randomly crash into other people driving five miles an hour.
I hate to make light of it, since people actually died due to driving into flooded areas. I hate to, but I'll do it.
On the bright side, I was moving slowly enough that I got to use my laptop from the car to scan for unsecured wireless networks. Anyone stuck on I-10 just outside the loop should know that there is a nice and strong one right about there. I was able to check my email, read a few articles on the Dungeons and Dragons website and kick off some downloads because I was in range for about an hour.
Most days, that beats the signal at our house.
Eventually, I tired of it and pulled off to take the surface streets.
These seemed filled with people too unsure of their driving skills to stay on the interstate as opposed to the enlightened haters like myself I'd been expecting.
Then I sat through multiple flashing red lights. I'm sure everyone reading this is aware, but flashing red lights are to be treated as four-way stops. That means we take turns.
I feel the need to clarify, since no one else on the planet seems to have figured this out.
Oh, great mystery of the flashing red light! Your hypnotic beauty entrances us! Lead us unto collisions and let us suffer not the screaming lunatic in the little silver car who names us "asshat" and "moron". Let his frequent query of "What the hell is wrong with you?" fall unto deaf ears, great flashing light.
I wondered briefly if they shouldn't deploy crack teams of electricians by helicopter to fix the stupid flashing lights during rush hour.
I further pondered the quality of the solid-state electronics. I'm sure the red light cameras work no matter what, but if a bird lands on an adjacent wire we are in red flashing light misery for possibly days.
I blame nature. That's right. Nature brings us rain which slicks the roads and floods our infrastructure (in about ten minutes). Nature sends her flocks of feathery evil minions to disable our traffic lights -- the only source of order on the road. Human nature causes blind weather-related panic combined with a need to not spill the Banana Mocha Frappuccino® at the possible and acceptable cost of smashing another car into a crumpled, leaking, steaming lane-blocking pile of twisted metal.
So I finally made it near home. But by this time, the amber "fuel warning" light was glaring at me aggressively. I looped around a big parking lot and swung into the gas station on the corner to see signs on every pump advising me that they could not accept credit cards at this time (probably the stupid weather again) and that I should pay cash inside.
Pay cash inside?
Who carries that much cash?
I know gas is less expensive than it was a few weeks ago, but if I carried the amount of cash to buy a full tank of gas, and I was for some reason (like screaming at other motorists) pulled over, I would be arrested under suspicion of being a . . . um . . . an "unlicensed pharmaceutical distributor". Or maybe a pimp. I did look pretty stunning yesterday. I'd hope the arresting officer would assume I was a pimp.
The sad truth is, after two solid, mind-numbing, soul-crushing hours in traffic, my arrest would not go down well at all. I'd be flailing and screaming stuff about how the "asshats are responsible for all the wars in the history of the world" and I'd ask the arresting officer if he was an asshat.
I only hope I'd be given a chance to apologize on national television later.
So I could wear a t-shirt promoting my blog.