She's a squirrel-crushing, deer-smacking, driving machine!

This month finds me at a new job (in addition to twice-weekly beer spilling), parked at a desk and delighting in spreadsheets, invoices, and trying to get rid of phone solicitors. I know, you're wondering how I can handle all of the glamor in my life. I tell ya, it's rough.

The fun thing about living in the country, aside from the lack of good pizza or New York Times delivery, is that you must drive. A lot. To get anywhere. The bar is about 30 minutes (as the Sheena drives) from home. The new office is across state lines in Massachusetts, just a stone's throw from Boston. Ginger and I are going for some sort of Volvo mileage record.

I usually take Rte 93 all the way from Manch-Vegas to my office. This way, while I must counterintuitively drive north in order to go south, I can usually haul Volvo ass once on the highway.

This morning, I had an appointment too far to the south in NH to justify the north-then-south route. So, I manned up and went from 101A (lots of lights and assholes), to Rte. 3, to 95/128 (New England's most confusing highway). From there, I planned to hop onto my good friend 93 to get to my office. I had never done this on purpose before, but I figured that if 93 North has an exit to get onto 95, I could certainly get to 93 S from 95 north of Boston. Makes sense, right? Or, at least it makes sense to a non-Masshole who's not yet a full cup of coffee into her day.

As it turns out, getting to work is overrated. Why drive to my destination when I can burn a whole lot of the gasoline I purchased yesterday by taking a jaunt through the Metro-Boston area? What is a Wednesday morning without driving the length of the Tip O'Neil tunnel south to north? A wasted Wednesday morning, that's what. I was thisclose to picking up the phone, calling in stupid, and going home to pout.

I guess I'm not yet the commuting champion I thought I was. I suppose it was an instructive experience, but when you've already spent an hour in the car, it becomes difficult to correct your navigation error patiently. I did, at one point, scream "What the fuck is going on?" as I passed an exit for Walpole, which is south of Boston. This is the second time 95 has bested me (the first time, I drove to Waltham on my way to Beverly from NH (trust me, it was stupid)).

I suppose the more time I spend tooling around the commonwealth, the more likely I'll be able to realize my potential for asshole driving. I look forward to the day when I can blithely make a left-hand turn around someone from the right.

The troubling thing? I think watching the needle edge further down the tank might be worse than getting felt up on the N train. Is that weird? Yeah. Thought so.

____
In case anyone's wondering about the photo and title theme of this post, I had the Canyonero song stuck in my head during a pitiful daydream that involved piloting the mighty Hubertus over the highway median.