The Pits Of Despair

One of the adjustments I've had to make for this new job is my daily commute.  Gone are the days where I traveled just 6 miles and 10 minutes to get to work.  Now it's over 15 miles and it takes at least 25 minutes.  And while I realize how small even that commute is compared to other people's drives, I do have one legitimate complaint.  The road that I spend 3 miles of the trip on is probably the worst road on the planet.  There are cracks and potholes and craters every few feet.  It feels like I'm driving on the moon.  I've had to memorize the best path to take among the three available lanes to avoid bottoming out in what I can only assume are pits where Civil War prisoners were kept.  And the government must have deemed them to be of historical importance.  Because there's no way that a) natural driving erosion could produce such abysses and b) everyone else is okay with this.

It's so bad, in fact, that I've dropped my phone in mid-call because of the ridiculous jarring effect.  The road is so bad that I wouldn't be surprised if the radio skipped.  And the worst part is that it's the last road I take before getting into my neighborhood.  So the last 10 minutes of my drive every evening is like driving off-road at a rock quarry.  That is not the calming effect I need when headed home.  And if I attempted to avoid it every day, I would have to add 15 minutes to my commute or $1.50 in tolls.

It's actually kind of amazing that I didn't know how bad the road was, considering it leads to my neighborhood.  But if I'd known that that had had a pothole problem for so long, I might not have taken the job (that's not true, I just really wanted to find a way to put "that that had had" in a sentence).