Commuter

I spend roughly 3.4% of my waking hours driving to and from work. It doesn’t sound like much, but that equates to about four hours a week of “alone time,” which is plenty of time to catch strange things.

For instance, when I get out of my apartment at the right time, I can see no less than three short buses on my trip to work each morning. Given their respective locations they even have to be three separate vehicles. Now, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that many in one town, much less in an under-20-minute drive. That’s a lot of short buses.

I’m not a particularly speedy driver. Not to say I’m slow; generally, I just go the speed of the traffic around me (about 5 over the limit). Regardless, there are always a few cars that pass me as though I’m standing still. And, not surprisingly, these are the same cars day after day. Since this is such a regular thing for these people, I’ve reached one conclusion. They’re probably not running late every single day -- at some point that would just become the time they show up. They must be driving so fast because they are much more excited than I am to go to work every day.

And people call me crazy.

My favorite part of the trip is when I drive across the Wisconsin River ... Here, you can look north and see the mid-river islands, green shores, boats, etc. Or you can look south and see Industry Row. Suffice it to say that the view to the north is a lot prettier and less depressing.

And then there’s the smell of the paper mill. “Wow, this is a pretty area.” Deep breath. “What the heck is that?!”

One of my coworkers described it as smelling like Smacks. Remember the cereal? Frog on the box? Strange puffed rice (I think) with brown sugar? Smells like that. When the temperature’s just right, the various odors from the different plants along the river mingle in the parking lot at Subway and come across as an ethanol plant. Mystifies me, since the nearest ethanol plant is in Iowa. Sheesh.

I’m rather glad I live on the other side of town.