Today's Special

Is a big, fat rant.

While it is very true, that I love, love, love my home state of Michigan, I also really, truly, madly, deeply hate driving in Michigan. A lot.

And today is one of those days where driving in Michigan really sucks.

A lot.

There was freezing rain yesterday evening, about 2 inches of snow last night and freezing rain again this morning. Which makes driving difficult, to say the least. Add in Michigan drivers (which are about the worst kind - more on that later) and it's a horrible day in the neighborhood, folks.

First thing this morning, I slid off the road. Not a good thing for my already overfilling bucket of anxiety. It was not good. In fact, if I hadn't been able to correct my slide I would have hit a) the tree next to me, or b) the cement pillar (holding up the overpass that is right there) in front of me. I was not in the best shape after that.

Then it took me so long to get to work that I only had enough time to grab a pad of paper and a pen to hustle across town to a meeting. Through more of the snow/slush crap that is everywhere on the roads.

The snow/slush that is not on the roads is actually really beautiful today. It's resting on every branch, and the whole world is pristine white. If I could have taken a snow day today, I would have. That is the one thing I miss about grade school - Snow Days.

As I mentioned earlier, throwing Michigan Drivers into this mess is not a good thing either. While driving around normally, someone runs every stop sign or red light I come to. I actually slow down at intersections, even when I have a green light, because you never know who is going to come barreling through the intersection.

Living in Michigan also enhances peoples' egos about driving.

They're all "I'm a Michigan Driver. I drive in this crap all the time. Throw it at me, I can handle it. I don't need to be any more careful than on a dry sunny day".

Ha. Yes you do. So I'm driving safely (not more than 5 miles an hour under the speed limit for this crap weather, but not fast either) and a Hummer (yes, Hummer - she and I drive to work together at least once every week, her riding my ass the whole way) flies up on my ass. Now, I drive a Mazda Protege - not the biggest of cars. If I had to slam on my brakes, with as slippery as it was today, I probably would have died.

This drives me absolutely bonkers, and makes me really, really angry on a bad day.

Today was worse than a bad day, and I'm PMSing, so I was *this close* to following her into her parking lot to bite her head off.

Seriously, riding my ass is not going to significantly shorten your driving time. I should know, I'm a statistician. I figure out significance on a daily basis. All it's going to do is make the crazy in me emerge just a little more, which is no good for anyone.

So, what all of this means, really, is that I'm going to give in to the temptation to emotionally eat today and get a big, fattening, greasy lunch because, damn, after a morning like this morning? I deserve a treat.