A burner paid for my toll today....

Driving driving driving in the mornin has made me hard....
I wake up at the crack of dawn to merge onto three different arteries
Filled with tolls and traffic and cranky morning commuters
And I have become one of them
I can actually feel the wrinkles being created from my frown
no joke

Even my friends have commented that that light n' airy feeling
I acquired from livin in the woods in UTOPIA this summer
has been replaced
by a hard crunchy candy coating on the outside....
A common mantra in my head is
"it's called merge you f$#@!! whore..."
no joke


but this morning reminded me
from where I come

In my mind, in my Jersey mind
the beginning of it started with this "idiot" driver at the toll booth
not really knowing what he/she was doing,
cutting over two lanes of traffic
to cut off my perfectly justified fellow traveler in front of me

Well he had had it,
and skipped over to the other lane as she just stopped
dead stopped sideways in front of the toll booth
how dare....

so that would be me in back of her, my mind racing with caffiene and adreneline and morning radio
at the thought of just another idiot behind the wheel
when all of the sudden I see it...

The man, the Bman, on the back of her car...

Aww shit! Well now, she's just a crunchy burner who don't know how to drive.. ahhhh.
I'll cut her some slack. In fact, the bumper sticker has now made me smile. Whereas in the Bay Area I would cry "conformist" upon seeing this sticker, maybe even a bit disgusted at the mass marketing of my beloved man now hanging from the back of the bumper,
I wanted to
RUN OUT OF MY CAR AND HUG HER
People from my own planet! So what she can't drive...

After quite a while, she moves on...
The toll booth maiden then informs me with a point, and a big smile on her face:
"That lady just paid for your toll"
"Isn't she beautiful" I cry out
And she shakes her head and agrees
understanding the mundane beauty of all of it!

My eyes well up
I get it
my own little burner angel

Did she know? Could she tell? You know how burners can spot each other...
Had she noticed me on the highway? Is that why she cut off the other guy in front?

Of course I think I am special and that it is all about me
but truth be told,
this is what our people do...
and where as I was so burnt out on this "pay it forward" mentality of my homeland SF
I needed this so so so much this morning...