"Don't Be THAT Guy"

If you live in the Tulsa area and you have to drive on the BA Expressway every day to/from work, then you know exactly how the people feel in this photo. That's me, the girl in the back ... after I've sat there for 10 minutes and only moved two car lengths while watching other cars fly by me just to squeeze in line at the front ... therefore, causing me to sit there for 10 minutes and only move two car lengths. I've taken 5 different routes to work and 3 different routes home. I've come to the conclusion that there is no faster way because you either sit in bumper to bumper traffic or you take the small roads with everyone else trying to avoid the BA. My 20 minute commute now takes 45-60 minutes. It's very frustrating.

So, as I sit in bumper to bumper traffic (because I abide by the traffic laws and merge when I'm told to merge) my anger slowly rises with each car that flies by to squeeze in at the front because their time is obviously much more valuable than mine. So, I try to use this time to think about life, pray, be thankful for what I have, but my eyes always look back over to the cars flying by and I get more and more angry.

So, what will I do about it? I will become THAT guy. Just once. I did it. This morning. I flew by everyone waiting. I felt the stares, the anger, the jealousy. What? Jealousy? Yes, you know that sometimes you want to be THAT guy. You want to fly by everyone, squeeze in at the front, and get to your destination with minimal delay. So I did it.

What lessons did I learn:

• It worked.
• I squeezed in effortlessly in front of a truck pulling a trailer.
• I had no delay. No bumper to bumper traffic.
• No anger.
• I easily shaved 15-20 minutes off of my commute time.
• I got to work on time.

That was not the lesson I thought I would learn. Maybe it was just a fluke or maybe God knew that I needed just one easy commute to work or maybe the amount of cars were down because people took off work for the holiday. Either way, that was too easy.

So, now what? Do I wait in line or fly by and squeeze in. We'll see...