It takes me 80 minutes to get work. That of course means it takes me another 80 to get home. (If I am lucky.) This has been going on for almost 5 years. I was going to start doing some math here, and calculate just how much bonding time this means I have had with my trusty Corolla, but much like Fox News, when facts and statistics do not go in my favor I find it best to just ignore them. This means that I won’t dwell on all the hours spent on the road that could have spent doing something productive around the house or in the community, or all the dollars spent on gas that could have been spent on any number of fine craft beers at Beachwood Barbeque. I realize that commuting to work means that I have had a job over the past 5 years, and that means that I have been very fortunate.
As far as driving temperament goes, I find myself to be somewhere between Gandhi and John McEnroe. This means that I am not to be considered “road ragey”, but I do find myself occasionally thinking of creative ways to tell drivers who cut me off that they are “#1”.
While the commute to work is fueled by Peets coffee, radio rants about Dwight Howard, and the hopes and dreams of my morning person optimism, the 5pm drive home proves to be a bigger challenge. An 80 minute journey of the soul really. Certainly I do leave my office building with a Fred Flintstone type gusto, and even find some great music to accompany my drive out of the parking lot. I loosen my tie, put on my sunglasses and even roll down the windows, just in case a fellow co-worker should see me pass by and think “wow, I always thought that guy was a corporate shill but that guy is really super cool”. Yes, fellow co-worker, on the outside I may be play-by-the- rules Brandon, but on the inside, I am all Dylan. (Yes I realize that making a 90210 reference makes me neither a Brandon nor Dylan, probably closer to a Screech.)
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7 minutes into my commute, my cool guy persona has given way to end of day tiredness, and I find myself dead stopped in the middle of Pasadena. Not having the presence of mind to see the irony in how the metro rail makes car traffic worse, I become a bit grumpy, turn on sports talk radio and settle in for the long day’s journey into Long Beach. It is only then that I notice the odd sound coming from my rear brakes. Now I am no car guy (shocker), but I am fairly sure that noise sounds expensive.
Eventually I find myself on the first of 3 or 4 Freeways I will need to take to get to my destination. Here I find it tempting to use the “commuting home is like life” metaphor. There are good lanes and bad and you shouldn’t get too excited or too down about them, there are thoughtless people who cut you off and kind people who let you in. There are cars on the road that are prettier than you; there are cars on the road in worse shape than you.
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My thoughts on the metaphor soon vanish when I realize I have gone 12 miles in 51 minutes. (Thankfully the city of Bell is gorgeous this time of year…)
Eventually, as it always does, somewhere along the line the traffic picks up and it all somehow evens out to bring you back to your home in the allotted 80 minutes. I must say that there is really no place better to finish your commute than Belmont Shore. Taking the Broadway exit off the 710, you drive through neighborhoods that range from dicey to diverse, finally making a right onto Termino, which slopes gently down to a beautifully framed view of our ocean which seems to have been tailor made to welcome you home. You are now only a minute from home, and in this instant you have already forgotten the previous 79.