After commuting via public transportation for five years I am now, sadly, back in the car for my daily trip to work. Not by choice, mind you, but by neccesity. I could go on and on about the horrible public transportation network in my city but I am guessing it’s not any different than any other mid-sized American city. It’s a horrible, horrible state of affairs.
The mental space needed to travel via public transportation and the mental space needed to travel via car are two very different beasts. It took me a few months to adjust to the former and it has taken me about a year to adjust to the later. I think it goes without saying that I prefer the public mode.
In order to amuse myself during what is, mostly, a low stress 25-minute drive to my office I have taken to making a list of all the random things I have seen thrown to the side of the road. It is also much fun to mentally negiotiate the series of actions that must have proceeded the dump out the window/off the roof/out of the truck bed on to the highway.
Aside from the obvious road-kill buffet I have seen:
- A shoe
- A bag
- A desk
- A kid’s picnic table
Most of those are common - shoes, bags… (while common, still a little weird).
You could see how a desk or a picnic table could end up there…an over zealous dad filling the bed of his truck just a bit too full.
But today, today I saw something that will leave me thinking for quite a long time.
Today I saw a toaster.
Not just any toaster. But a nice toaster.
Now what in the name of all things holy caused that toaster to meet its fate on a random highway in upstate NY?
I spent eight years driving on the Los Angeles freeway system, where you’ll see EVERYTHING (except roadkill) on the road. Bed. Couch. Loveseat. Mattress. My all-time favorite?
A basketball hoop, attached to a plexiglass backboard. Sitting squarely in the middle of the second lane from the right on the westbound 210 freeway
With a CHP on the shoulder two lanes over with a look on his face that said “now how the HELL am I going to get that out of the way?”
I had a cuisinart toaster oven. I wanted to throw it off of the highway too.
One of my friends found a wing chair by a freeway in Houston. She hauled it into her trunk and had it re-upholstered, and it’s gorgeous! Things like that never happen to me….
My first reaction was it probably talked too much. I can’t imagine having anything other than my cheapo toaster (one of my friends wanted a $100 toaster… for that much it better toast like the wind!).
Maybe some poor, misguided husband decided to present his wife’s birthday present while riding in the car….