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Traffic will make you come unhinged
Patty Leon new

Have you seen the movie with Russell Crowe called “Unhinged.” Mom and I just watched it Saturday night on Amazon Prime.

Basically Russell Crowe is already having a bad day. The movie starts with him watching someone’s home while he pops a few Oxycodone, removes his wedding ring, knocks on the door of the house, hacks the guy who opens the door and the woman (who was apparently Crowe’s wife), pours gasoline on the people and lights the house on fire.

Mind you, that’s the first SCENE!

A few minutes later he is sitting at a light and not quite clear in his mind. When the light turns green and he doesn’t move the woman behind him pounds on her horn and then cuts around him.

You can guess what comes in the next 90 minutes. I mean even Mom and I were yelling at the TV, “YOU PICKED THE WRONG PERSON TO MESS WITH LADY!”

Without spoiling the rest of the movie, Crowe’s character was beyond your typical road rage to say the least. Or at least so I thought until this past Sunday.

I had to make an office visit this week. I wasn’t nervous about venturing out. After all I got both Pfizer shots done, and I packed my Clorox wipes, hand sanitizers, masks, Lysol Spray and what not and hit the road on a Sunday thinking there would be less traffic.

WRONG!

Maybe it’s the fact that I had not ventured out for a long road trip in a year. Or maybe it’s because the whole rest of the world has also not ventured out in a year (Thanks COVID). And maybe because of that people forgot how to drive or lost their minds trying to get from point A to point B. 

Yes, mostly it was people had just lost their minds!

There was the Black Ford truck zig-zagging through traffic like he was playing Frogger. Well he zigged when he should have zagged and lost part of his load on Interstate 75 causing the rest of us behind him to zig and zag and seek the safety of the shoulder, lest we cause a pile up.

Then there was the older retired couple driving their Class A mobile home with the Hyundai towed behind them. The guy’s head was barely above the steering wheel and I got stuck in the lane next to him for a stretch. Every so often, his wheels would creep over into my lane.

“HEY BOZO STAY IN YOUR LANE,” I yelled knowing he couldn’t hear me and likely didn’t even realize he kept sliding over.

“OMG, you’re getting too close! STOP PLEASE.”

And when he wasn’t encroaching in my lane he was doing the same to the other car in the lane to his right. I think I heard the guy yelling at the older guy too.

Finally when the traffic jam eased up I moved away from that vehicle as quick as I could. During that six and a half hour drive, I passed four different accident scenes and two bales of hay sitting in the middle of I-16.

By the end of my trip I understood how Russell Crowe and others could become unhinged. My nerves were shot and my hands were sore from gripping the wheel. I’m willing to bet my blood pressure was through the roof.

I know a lot of people like to complain about the traffic in Liberty County, but honestly it ain’t poop compared to having to drive the I-75 corridor of hell which stretches from Kennesaw to Macon.

Or the terror that is the Palmetto Expressway in Miami. I remember when I lived in Miami and worked at an office which required having to take the route every day. It would take two hours to get to work 17 miles from home. 

When I moved to Georgia and heard people complain about the traffic on Highway 84 I laughed. Oglethorpe Highway was not as bad as the traffic I was used to, UNTIL NOW.

I’ve been gone for a year. Suddenly Highway 84 felt like I-4 in Orlando during Disney Days and the whole world made reservations for the same weekend.

GRID LOCK!

Where did all these people come from? Where are they going? And can they please DRIVE LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE!

And then I realized I needed to chill out and just drive as best I could. You see, I’m now one of those people driving in Liberty County with an out of state tag, and I might piss off a native…who just might become unhinged.


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