Heat

Ahh the stifling summer heat has returned. I missed it during it's brief respite... Oh wait, no I didn't. Today, my friend and I hatched the ingenius plan to spend the day at the lake. So we packed up, sunscreen, bathing suits and towels and set off early. By 10 am, the sun was already beating down with blistering heat, but we still set up camp on the beach, and proceeded to spend the rest of the day hopping in and out of the tepid water. Even more ingenius, we thought, was to leave the beach at 4 in order to "beat rush hour".

Alas, it was not to be. The highway was as clogged as an artery in Texas, after a sale at McDonalds. A garbage truck had caught on fire somewhere down the road, and since our radio was only picking up static until we hit the pileup, we were stuck for good. Crawling, we inched forward, playing the traffic jammers game of "which lane is going faster?" and always came up on the losing end. I spent my time watching the other drivers as they clutched their grim faces in their hands, started to blow steam out of their ears, or smoked cigarette after cigarette hoping to relieve some tension. The lucky ones had air conditioning, the unlucky (like us) didn't, and slowly suffocated as the air fell around them.

As the time we spent in the traffic jam grew longer and longer, I started to go a little crazy, performing franatic little dances when songs I knew came on the radio, imagining myself jogging down the road laughing maniaclly at those standing still. Car after car succommed to the deathly heat and their carcasses lined the shoulder, steaming with hoods propped open. My stomach slowly began to digest itself, as it should have been home and filled with food long ago. Sustenance, I screamed internally. I need sustenance! I thought for a fleeting moment about sinking my teeth into the driver. She looked a little baked under the windshield, and I wondered if human flesh really did taste like chicken, as they say. But it was only a fleeting moment, and I retreated back into my heat induced stupor once again.

Finally, after 2 hours (a drive that should have taken 30 minutes), we reached the burned out shell of the former garbage truck. And then, we were on our way, flying down the highway. Life never felt so good. I felt free, like I had just won the lottery. You know, there's nothing at all like a good traffic jam to make you appreciate freedom, and life. (And no, I wouldn't want to experience it again. Not for a million.)