Elton John once famously sang about a "circle of life" in a Disney movie about lions. To protect the innocent children that watch Disney movies from the ugly realities of their world, Elton forgot to mention the "circle of death." This is known in modern society as traffic circle.
Yesterday afternoon, I set out onto the endearingly familiar I-90 thruway on a mission. I was going to head straight into the depths of it, where angry drivers go 30 miles an hour over the speed limit and use their middle fingers as turn signals, on a summer Saturday afternoon. And I was going to make sure that I came out of it in, at most, three pieces. (You can't get too optimistic around western New York. Being in one piece with the way people drive around here is a luxury.)
When I drive in places that are difficult to drive in, I start naturally leaving some of my driving up to instinct. This is exactly the opposite of what driving instructors told me to do in driver's education, but it just happens. When my instinct starts to exert some influence over the steering wheel and the gas pedal, I no longer drive like a timid and feeble 17 year old -- I begin driving like I'm Sebulba in Star Wars Episode I Racer. For those of you who lived less fortunate lives and did not get the blessing of having this unbelievably addictive game as a child, here is a picture:
(If you are also wondering if I look that sexy while I drive, I unfortunately don't think I measure up. That's the kind of good looks that you have to be born with.)
In other words, that means that I drive like my car is a giant podracer with turbo jets and my main objective is to either make you get out of my way or make you explode.
While I was in this state of elevated testosterone and adrenaline, I tried to keep enough of my wits about me to find my thruway exit in a timely enough manner to make it without cutting off everyone on the road simultaneously. The exit I sought was #50, so, naturally, when I came to its antecedent -- #51 -- my tension level rose.
Then I came to exit 50A. Only it didn't look like 50A out of the corner of my eye. It looked like 50. It didn't help that I had a bigass truck with a full size trailer following it. People should not do that. Bringing a full size trailer on the expressway is like trailing an elephant behind you on a bicycle path. You get in everyone's way and it makes no one like you.
Panicking and strongly disliking the guy driving the truck with the trailer, I whipped over into what I thought was my exit and found out just seconds too late that it, very tragically, was not. I was lost somewhere in suburbia between Amherst and Buffalo. I wasn't ready to panic yet, though; I pulled into a gas station parking lot and pulled out my trusty phone with GPS and navigated to my sister's apartment. It showed me a pretty short route. That doesn't look too difficult, I thought. I was, in hindsight, blissfully unaware of the demons I was about to encounter.
It didn't take me long to end up at something that looked remotely like this:
When you are from a city or a suburb, this looks entirely normal to you. In fact, this is probably how you are used to getting around. When you come from a village with one stoplight, though, this looks a lot more like weird concrete crop circles and thus is likely a symbol of the apocalypse.
The sign, which I remember a bit like this, didn't do much to quell my fear and uncertainty.
My phone GPS was my only defense in this strange circular world. Without it, I might have ended up in Fairytopia.
Traffic circles, I soon discovered, are kind of like revolving doors. Only these revolving doors can kill you and have like 5 possible exits. "Missing your exit" on a revolving door is a little embarrassing, but some may find it cute and it is largely harmless unless you manage, somehow, to crush yourself, which is unlikely and would probably require you to be drunk. Missing your exit on a traffic circle is not cute. It's horrifying.
Did I make it out alive? I'd love to leave you in suspense, but considering that I'm writing this, I don't think you're stupid enough to fall for that. Was it beyond terrifying? Yes.
Moral of the story? No one should drive on the expressway with a full size trailer behind their truck. It is an act of cruelty that results in unfair tribulations like this.
