Here's a movie poster that perfectly describes my commute home from work.
Seriously, Stallone was in that?
Well, perfectly describes it, minus the nudity and 80's political commentary.
Point being, I don't know I survive my 45 minute drive out of Phoenix three days a week. Getting in is the easy part, getting out is the hard part.
Much like another movie involving death and cars.
Unlike most major cities where the poorest part is closer to the center, the poorest part of Phoenix is on the outer rim, like a crusty edge of pie made up of racial profiling and disenfranchisement. And in the fruity center is the richer people of Phoenix (or the too poor to live in California as we call them), a citrusy messy center of racial profiling and disenfranchisement to those not as rich.
One of the many things the Phoenix metropolitan area has in common with the Galactic Empire from Star Wars.
And there's two things you need to know about driving, other than which petal is which, poor people suck at driving because they have nothing to lose, and rich people suck at driving because they can afford to have nothing to lose.
Because the poor don't have insurance, meaning you'll be paying anyway, and the rich have lawyers and insurance meaning you'll be paying anyway.
So welcome to Death Race 2K14, you middle class son of a bitch, hope you have a rail-road spike cannon.
So getting into Phoenix in the late morning is the easy part, traffic is slow, (or high speed in comparison to LA), but it's all your average barely white collar middle-class Americans who vote for incumbents every November because we can't be bothered to read up on politics.
Then you pass the T&A Strip Club (It doubles as a stop for schools buses, I'm not kidding) at Indian School Road, and welcome to the best bad part of Phoenix, AZ.
Google Maps really doesn't want you to go there so it just shows up as an ATM.
You then drive through the outer-crust of Phoenix and into the heart, the trip takes so long you forget what smooth road feels like and by the time you make it to 12th Street you feel sick to your stomach from the smoothness.
But like I said, the drive in is easy, it's the drive out that's the hard part.
When driving out at rush hour (or any hour really) you're greeted with all the rich dudes who spend all day driving in circles, I guess, I assume the rich add something to society but all they seem to do is drive around in their fancy BMWs.
Or poor man's Lamborghini as they call them in Southern California
And well you're in this.
Or poor man's servant's servant's door stop as they call them in Southern California
Just an average American car stuck in a sea of Germans, Italians, and Japanese all with faster and louder engines ready to show you who really won World War II.
Next thing you know you're drag racing a BMW i8 with a Fisker Karma and you're coming in fourth behind a Toyota Camry.
Seriously when did Finland make cars?
Yeah, if you ever want to know what it's like to be in a Fast and Furious movie, drive downtown in Phoenix between 3-5pm. It's much less this:
and a lot more this:
Yes, old men trying to finally live out their dreams of being 80's action stars. And you're stuck right in the middle of their final-quarter-life-crisis.
Then the Nissan Frontiers roll in.
And by Nissan Frontiers, I mean any small 90's pick-up truck, since they all looked the same back then.
I can't be the only one who notices that all Mid-90's half-ton trucks look the same right?
The Frontiers (or the Rangers, S10s, Tacomas, whatevs) start to roll into traffic and they're like giant squids to the rich folks sperm whales. In the sense that they are two giants of the deep ocean who fight night and day for sustenance by getting into a death battle where one will survive and the other will be eaten.
You're a tiny human in this metaphor
Yes, you're now in the middle of a class warfare, war, on the road. Err, if only I made a point like the earlier....
Oh, yeah right this thing.
You're now in full Death Race. Packs of '94 Honda Civics chase down and corner lone Teslas. Small raiding bands of Audi R8s plunge into a swarm of Isuzu...things. (I can't remember their model names).
And as the mess of rich versus poor becomes more and more homogenized. Then, the curve happens.
When the city architect ran out of ruler and moved it down the paper to continue drawing the line and it wasn't lined up correctly so it wasn't drawn perfectly straight.
The Curve is a sudden movement of lanes from a full straight 180° to a slightly more curved 150° road. Meaning one second all cars are moving in a straight path following the lane, and then suddenly everyone is driving across the white dotted lines, right before an intersection.
When the The Curve hits all falls into chaos and the Imports turn at central avenue, because they know beyond is the outer crust of the city. Where the Frontiers live.
You pass over Central, joined by the rest of your middle class peers, V6 Mustangs and Challengers, a few Chargers, Honda Odysseys, newer model Camrys, Silverados, you're all now the richest on the road, and the targets of lemons prowling the streets. Banged up side-panels that will never be replaced, a few don't have hoods. Essentially the car version of the The Walking Dead.
Doing the whole pretending to be a zombie thing to fit in will cost you a couple grand.
But it gets even worse, the pedestrians start to come out.
See in the great state of Arizona, it is written that pedestrians always have the right of way. So if a guy runs across six lanes of traffic in a downtown area, as suppose to walking a quarter-of-a-block down to the nearest crosswalk at the intersection, he's totally in the right to do so.
So now you're competing with cars that have nothing to lose, due to that fact that they don't have any more parts to lose, and crazy people trying to get to a Panda Express across the street via running at you.
Do you see where I'm coming from describing how painful my driving experience is?
Look it takes me 15 minutes from when I pull off of the pseudo-freeway and enter Phoenix to the place that I work, with the horrible squeaking chair.
Oh I haven't forgotten you Satanic Anal Sphincter
It takes me 45 minutes to get out Phoenix, and I leave a good hour or two before rush hour. The issue is all of the lane merges and right-turn-only lanes plastered around the city, with a horde of aggressive drivers trying to get through it.
I don't understand why everyone needs to rush to get to where they're going as fast as possible. Yes, driving isn't the most amazing thing that a human does in its life time. Though if you brought Thomas Jefferson from the past to the present the second thing he would do is drive in a car for several hours in pure amazement.
Right after he tries to get to third base with all of the African American women he can find.
Yes we're all in a hurry, but if you impede the flow of traffic you're just slowing yourself and everyone behind you down, because it's hard to get places when a firefighter is pulling you out of the wreckage of your Chevy Impala.
If you want to get somewhere on time, wake up earlier or something.
Seriously I want to get home without fighting for my life in a 3200 pound pile of metal and plastic going 55mph.
500 pounds lighter than an adult male walrus, Google it.
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