Today I scarcely made it out of my apartment before entering the most absurd traffic backup I've even had the displeasure of being in. Mere seconds after getting past the last place I could have easily exited from I95, I was stopped by cars waiting to cross the George Washington bridge. Two miles separated me from the toll booths. The time to cross this chasm? Try 2.5 hours. That's right: today my commute took four hours. I love days when the weather is bad. It's only long backups that make me regret opting for a manual transmission; my clutch leg is seriously sore.
The most amusing obstacle during this wait was when I had to stop for a guy crossing the road. He had pulled over his 280ZX to the side of the road, started his hazard lights going, and rushed across three lanes. His goal? A not especially secluded spot to urinate in. He seemed in considerably better cheer during his walk back to the car.
As I was nearing the end of the bridge, I was thinking that today could not have gone much worse. I had a million things to do and waiting in traffic didn't accomplish any of them. As the cars started to exit and the morass broke up some, I realized that I was not the person most inconvienced by this state of affairs. I passed a series of cars all following a hearse. That's right: some poor soul leading a funeral procession had to sit in that mess for several hours with a dead body in the back seat. At least with the cell phone, I had somebody to talk to.