The Roots of Road Rage…Cell Phones

Today is Saturday, nine days before Christmas, in Short Pump, Virginia. The three essential facts found in that sentence reveal an awful lot about what I can expect if I am unfortunate enough to have to leave my neighborhood for any reason today. Anyone from around here knows that what I am about to describe is the God awful truth. It may be the same in your town, I’m sure of it actually, because this is Christmas in America.

Since there are now only six shopping days left before the big day, panic has started to course through the veins of Short Pumpians. There is so much still left to do and time is short and getting shorter. Luckily for us, almost every store on our list is located within the tight square mile I have highlighted below:

Within the parameters of this red circle lies Dante’s 9th level of commercial hell. On the one hand, everything that anyone might need for human flourishing can be found within this slab of real estate. If not, it can be ordered then scheduled for pickup by a series of wide-eyed sales clerks that inhabit the thousand shops, stores and outlets found here. According to the 2020 United States census, there are 27,385 souls who live in Short Pump. However, over the next nine days there will be at any given time roughly twice that amount crammed, wedged and packed within this red circle, either in parking lots, stores or clogging every road, street and boulevard in town, all looking for that hard to find gift for cousin Billy that he will either lose or destroy by New Year’s Day.

In the map above, my home is the little blue dot at the bottom, safely out of harm’s way…but barely. Unfortunately, at some point over the next week or so I will have to leave the confines of my peaceful neighborhood and venture out into the abyss. When I do I will encounter a teaming mass of automobiles, bumper to bumper in all directions. I will spend what seems an eternity sitting still at stoplights, and every single time I do the following will happen.

It matters not whether I am three cars back from the light or ten cars back. The car at the front of the line and generally the car right behind him will have one thing in common. Their heads will be tilted down, eyes locked on their cell phones, their little thumbs and fingers tapping out frantic messages. Accordingly, when the light finally turns green they will be clueless to this vitally important change in their reality. Since the guy right behind the first guy is equally engaged, both cars sit stone still while everyone else in the queue starts to get annoyed and restless. Under normal circumstances we drivers usually give the guy in front of a stoplight lane three seconds of grace. But, this is Christmas and we are fresh out of grace. As a mental and emotional experiment, close your eyes and imagine that you are in this line and you see that the light has changed from red to green. Now start counting off the seconds in your head. At what point would you become alarmed if there was no movement? For me its five seconds. At second six my horn is blowing like Mount Vesuvius. If you think this is unduly impatient, I challenge you to do the thought experiment I just described. Six seconds at a standstill waiting for some jackass to put his cell phone down and move feels like a freaking eternity.

Multiply this incident times a thousand and you will quickly understand why road rage is an actual thing. I like to call this traffic jam inducing phenomenon cell phone cellulite. The most astonishing thing about the traffic at Christmas in Short Pump is that it is still this bad despite the boom in internet shopping. We are constantly being told about the increasing percentage of business being conducted by people in the pajamas sitting on their sofas. And yet, the streets of Short Pump still look like rush hour in Manhattan. Maybe that can be explained thusly:

Pam: Ok honey, I just found that kumfinator thing on Patrick’s list at the Target near Yen Ching. It says it will be ready for pickup at 2:00 this afternoon. Can you go get it for me?

Me: Why didn’t you have it shipped here?

Pam: Are you kidding? That would have cost 6 bucks, silly.

Me: You do realize it will take me an hour to get over there and back in this traffic.

Pam: And your point is……?

So, I drive down Broad Street stopping at seven stop lights and watch seven different idiots texting on their cell phones after the lights change, which makes me increasingly furious and brings me to the very edge of road rage a mere two weeks before we all celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace.