Road work ahead

Do you ever feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done? Is your to-do list piling up? Do you find yourself thinking, if only I had more time?

Well, do I have a solution for you! It’s called Waiting in Line at a Construction Traffic Stop. 

Waiting in Line at a Construction Traffic Stop is the liminal space between your real, productive life and an endless purgatory where time ceases to exist. Or rather, time doesn’t seem to matter to the guy who’s holding the SLOW/STOP sign. You might as well relent yourself to him because he’s your Charon now – the ferryman who will guide you to deliverance and also over that giant hole in the asphalt. 

Whether you were rushing to get to work on time or on your way to a nonrefundable appointment with a strict late-arrival policy, Waiting in Line at a Construction Traffic Stop is the universe’s way of giving you that extra time you’ve been asking for. (Albeit in a really inconvenient way.) But instead of shaking your fist out the window or banging your head on the steering wheel, you should embrace this as an opportunity to knock out some of those items on your to-do list! After all, how often do you get to be held hostage in a black hole of timelessness?

Here are some ideas of tasks that will only take a small eternity to complete while you wait to travel a quarter of a block:

• Play a game of Monopoly start to finish with the other drivers around you; try not to spend the entire game seething in resentment when someone else picks the dog before you, and you have to be the stupid little wheelbarrow 

• Watch all three extended editions of “The Lord of the Rings” films, plus the 26 hours of behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the cast and crew

• Actually read the preamble to a lasagna recipe on a cooking blog

• Get a degree in civil engineering with an emphasis in transportation while also studying general relativity to understand the curvature of spacetime; travel back in time; get a job as a city planner; propose a different design for the road you’re currently on that would eliminate the future need for construction delays

• Research why breakdancing is now an Olympic sport but hot air ballooning, tug-of-war and canon shooting fell off the roster

• Dig way too deep into that cooking blogger’s back-catalog and learn that they discovered their culinary passion during a study abroad year in Italy following a tumultuous breakup, and they’ve been using cooking as a way to heal their broken heart ever since; realize you’re slowly starting to fall in love

• Figure out what the hell Wordle is 

• Read the Terms and Conditions of every contract you’ve ever signed; sit with the knowledge that you’ve effectively signed your life away

• Keep a dying language alive: learn to translate English into Wingdings 

• Schedule all your doctor’s appointments from now until the rest of your life, which might be shorter than you think if you have to sit in a hot car without AC for much longer 

• Read the literary masterpiece “War and Peace”; get out of your car and go down the line telling every other driver that you’ve just read the literary masterpiece “War and Peace”

• Write an opinion piece for your local independent newspaper; double the estimated writing time if you’re trying to be funny (this will ensure plenty of time for mental breakdowns and contemplations of self-worth)

• Sit with your feelings

• Discover a new species of fungi growing off the chicken nugget you dropped under your seat back in 2011

Memorize all the words to R.E.M.’s 1987 hit classic, “It’s the End of the World as we Know It (And I Feel Fine)” so you don’t have to mumble-hum everything between the chorus aside from “LEONARD BERNSTEIN”

• After much rumination, leave a review of “War and Peace” on Goodreads: “Too much war. Not enough peace. 2 stars.”

• You know it’s crazy, but you feel this inexplicable connection with cooking-blogger-person, like really know them, so you reach out via email and – surprise! –  they not only write you back, but begin a correspondence that over time transforms from friendship into a tender romance, and when you propose to them from your car via FaceTime with a ring you’ve made from discarded gum wrappers, they enthusiastically nod yes; the other drivers waiting in construction traffic with you are the bridesmaids and groomsmen; your wedding cake is lasagna; you live a long, happy life together 

• Call your mom

– Addyson Santese