09.08.2005 - 10:18 a.m.

The proper way to leave work after a fifteen-hour shift is as follows:

Drop your stuff in the passenger seat. Take your time settling yourself in the driver�s seat, buckling up, and selecting your music. Whatever you pick, the percussion should be substantial and the tempo fast. Depending on the shoes you wore that day, you may opt to drive barefoot. Weather permitting, the car�s top should be down.

Ease out of the parking lot, turning left onto the two-lane highway. This is the part of the drive that should feel like a dream, and if you are thinking at all, you should be thinking that you do not have to see your office again for at least twelve hours. Nobody can ask you for favors until you choose to come back. Nobody can interrupt you and ask �for just a few minutes.� The music is rising, but it doesn�t drive you yet. They speed trap this road every once in a while. Breathe.

Turn on to the little connecting road, you know, the windy one with no shoulders.

Punch it.

Keep it punched at least until you exit the trees. Gear shifts should be quick and crisp, and other than the shifts, the pedal should not lift for any reason. If it feels at all safe to do this part with one hand, you are not going fast enough. At some point on this road, you should lose your sense of responsibility and adulthood and budget. I�ve noticed that these thoughts can only travel at about sixty-five miles an hour; seventy will do in a pinch, but eighty is best to outrun them. You will have to slow down when the road opens up into residential space, certainly by the time you reach those two driveways with blind entrances; you want to be a good bit ahead by then.

Finish your drive in a second dream state, one in which you can think about all the lovely things you might do with your three hours of evening. You can speed when you pass the first residential bit, but it is a good idea to keep one or two yahoos in sight who are going faster than you. They speed trap here too.

Pull into the driveway exhausted and hungry and shaky, but with a new lease on your sanity. For the evening, enjoy what you can.

-stonebridge

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