Moody Meow

I hope you don’t have to get off at John Young Parkway from I-4. The new flyover is a horrific, rage-inducing mess.This project was supposed to relieve traffic from I-4 to John Young. On a normal morning, I had to watch for trucks and sleepy commuters running the light at the intersection for the off-ramp. People muscled through, unwilling to wait the few minutes for the next light. It got dangerous. I witness two very near misses that would have ended up with someone smooshed. The speeds were high and the drivers, aggressive and reckless. I know I’m not known for my ultra-save driving skills. And yes, I speed, but I mind intersections. I always have.

I’ve watched them install the roads, the pillars being hammered deep into the ground in the early morning hours. I marveled at the cranes resting atop those pillars before the groundwork for the street was laid. Monster earth movers scooped and shimmied the land to suit the needs of the road. For almost a year, a mound of dirt, nearly two stories tall rested on the right of the old off ramp. After the rain, the mound grew a beautiful assorment of grasses and wildflowers, so it looked like an ungroomed yard. Then the machines took big bites of the soil, leaving a wound in the grass. The mound grew shorter and shorter until it disappeared. For the past two years, I’ve witness the transformation of that off-ramp, and I wondered what the effect would be on my commute.

It was hell, I tell you. It takes me, at most, 10 minutes to get from my driveway to my parking space at work. I spent, without exaggeration, forty minutes on the flyover. The traffic was backed up all the way onto I-4, and for some reason, I didn’t bypass the traffic and just head to Millennia and backtrack. Instead, I stubbornly remained in my lane, confidant that we would get moving somehow. I watched the time erode, bringing me closer, and finally beyond that time that would make me late. I started getting mad. There is no indication at the top of the ramp which lane you need to be in if you want to get onto John Young or LV McLeod. To go left on John Young, the left lane would suffice. Everything else – the other direction for John Young, the onramp for I-4 (from John Young) and the exit for both directions of LB McLeod were all congealed into that right lane. So, you had cars racing up and then stopping traffic on the flyover, trying to get onto the other direction of John Young.

I got mad. If I stayed in the off-ramp lane, I was going to get forced into going onto LB McLeod. No one would let me onto John Young. I rolled down my window and started yelling. I really felt like I needed a cigarette. I wanted a bag of flaming dog-shit to throw at the selfish asshats who refused to see me with my turn signal on, and more so, who refused to let me over. I had a nice lady in a white Saturn who finally let me over. The bitch in the mustang, and the mullet-wearing sperm-bag in the blue truck deserve the award for “Rudest Driver of the Year.” Both of them looked right at me, and then eased forward so I couldn’t get in.

I hope your wheels fall off.