All This Horsepower and No Room To Gallop

I'm going to try and follow C's advice and just write, even if I don't feel like I have anything interesting to say.

Work never stops and sometimes, I wake up and dread the idea that there's another fifty or so years ahead of me of sitting at a desk for nine hours, stressed out of my mind, only to go home, have some dinner and a few hours of reprieve before I have to get up and do it all over again.  I'm still averaging about fifty-five hours a week and am only thankful that I can do about ten hours of those from home, preferably in my pajamas in bed. 

Regardless, I still feel like I'm so far behind I'm never going to catch up.  I've taken on so much responsibility in the past few months - not because I want it but merely because it NEEDS to be done and at this point, there's no one else willing to do it.  I used to swear by the idea that when I left work, everything stayed there.  Now, I leave and spend the entire commute home wondering if there is anything I can accomplish when I get home.  Like that twenty minute drive is only a break while I switch venues. 

The guilt, it kills me.  I feel guilty because I can't get everything accomplished at work.  I feel even guiltier because I neglect Steve and the dog and other self-deemed "housewifely" duties that my brain just turns to mush thinking about after a long day.

And let's not talk about the traffic I've encountered this week.  That's enough to make my head want to explode.  My thirty minute commute has taken exactly an hour the past two days or so.  Most of it is related to accidents or rush hour but seriously, I haven't experienced bumper to bumper traffic like this since I left Philly.  And it's frustrating because no matter which back way I try to take, it's just as congested.

Aside from the fact that the most Northern thing about me is how I drive.  I cannot stand the lacksidasical approach people take to driving down here.  The speed limit on the one lane main road to my neighborhood is 40 but people insist on doing 25 because they're on their cell phone or just because they feel like seeing the sights.  

Oh, and the merging.  They should teach a lesson on merging when you get your SC driver's license.  You do not slam on your brakes to let someone in - that's why they have a merge lane.  And to those of you merging - if you see me traveling at a steady speed in the lane you are trying to merge in, do not speed up only to cut me off within an inch of my life then slow down.  If you are so worried about getting over on time, slow down a little and get behind me, the person doing the speed limit.  You cutting me off isn't going to get you anywhere faster, especially when you immediately slow down, and you'll be lucky if it doesn't kill us.

Then there's the disabled vehicles.  Most of the time, they are the ones blocking lanes in some of the busiest traffic.  I'm pretty much going to place the blame for those on the lack of state inspection in SC.  I really should start logging some of the pieces of shit people get away with driving around here.  I saw someone once puttering around in a vehicles WITHOUT A HOOD.  Like, driving with nothing to protect the engine.

I know SC used to have an inspection.  By the time I got here, it was obsolete but I heard they got rid of it because it didn't really matter.  People were getting fake stickers and not caring if they drove cars that weren't deemed safe to drive.  And I really wonder if things got so bad that they couldn't enforce it.  Other states still require an inspection and they enforce it hard.  I know I've gotten pulled over in PA because my stickers were out of date.  And even though Steve was certified to inspect my car, it didn't give me any leeway.  If my check engine light was on, he fixed it before he ever put stickers on because we knew the consequences. 

And that just leads me believe that it's beter to have regulations in place than not have any at all.  Because I know in PA, there were people skirting the law, but I also know it was harder to get away with it.  And I can only think, everytime I hear a report about a disabled vehicle blocking traffic, that if they started enforcing inspections again, perhaps we would have less of these pieces of shit vehicles breaking down and causing all the traffic problems that they do.

But I'm just a girl trying to get to work so what does my opinion count anyway?

And would you look at that ... C was right.  If you force yourself to blog, sometimes you can come up with something to say, even if it's just me whining and moaning about traffic.