Morning Madness

It's always the same picture. You wake up right early to get out on the road to beat the traffic. But when you enter the big road you realize, you are not the only one having had that idea. There they come, NASCAR on the interstate, and you are gonna be part of it. Like a swarm of bees are they coming towards you. You are still on the far right lane, need to insert your rig into the stream of bees. You push down the accellerator all you can, hear your engine start letting out a high scream, you have your left turn signal on and your eyes fixated on your left mirror. A truck might pull over to the left giving you a chance. You turn the wheel and try to slide over, but now...what is this?? An upper class SUV pushes out right behind you and starts passing you - in the lane you just tried to enter. Darn...that was a close call. You are back in the far right lane. The bees have now turned into hornets. They make good on their first come - first served right. Desperately you are still looking into your mirror. Another truck driver shows mercy. A second chance. Now or never, cause the end of the entering lane is in sight and beyond is only the ditch.

Finally you have made it, and you dry the sweat off of your forehead.

This I call morning madness. It repeats itself every morning when you start out on the road. These hornet drivers have all rushed from their lovely homes where they are loving family members. With a grim face they inject themselves into their cars to start the race to work. They usually are 30 minutes late and have to make up for lost time, else their boss is giving them hell.

And you know what's the worst? Everything goes into reverse in the late afternoon.

Thankfully, I am done for this time.
After a 10-hour day I hit home turf at 4:30EST. I left the rig on the American side as the van has to be officially exported from the U.S. And that cannot be done at our local border crossing. Nope, I have to go to the Calais border crossing on Monday. I guess the procedure was implemented as a guardrail against making financed vehicles disappear across an international border. Papers have to be faxed to border station 72hrs before crossing and it entails the professional help of a customs broker who, you guessed it, imposes a salty fee for his services.

What a world we live in!