I have spent most of the past twelve years commuting at least one hour a day: 30 minutes to work, and usually 40 minutes to return home. I have tried a number of things to avoid monotony, such as taking as many different routes as possible. I may be the only person in the world who uses a GPS to commute home from work because I try new routes and end up in unfamiliar places. To make the most of the commuting time, I have tried a number of things. I have listened to the Bible and prayed, although it seems a little irreverent to interrupt the prayer yelling at someone who has cut me off. I have listened to Christian radio, which means I have heard the song "I Could Only Imagine" over 5,000 times. I have listened to pop radio. I have listened to the music of my youth to somehow re-energize portions of the brain and keep my mind sharp. Sometimes, I switch back and forth between Christian and pop radio, alternating between joy and guilt. I have listened to talk radio and sports radio. I have tried listening to the classic books on radio such as Les Miserables, but I cannot keep the characters or place names straight because the authors all use the original French pronunciations. I have listened to business books such as Good to Great to enhance my career, but seem to be able to only remember only one thing from the books, but I can't even think of that one thing right now. I have listened to sermons by Tim Keller. (I do not listen to my own sermons.) I have listened to books on my Kindle most recently, and am getting used to it, although I don't care for the electronic voice. I do oddly enjoy listening to the footnotes though, almost as much as the text of the book. I have practiced accents, even yesterday imitating the World Cup announcers on ESPN in the Netherlands-Argentina match. I also do a pretty good Vladimir Putin, although it is mostly him talking about the Brooklyn Nets, which I assume is his favorite basketball team.
With all of this commuting, you would think I would drive a nice car. I don't. To me, driving a nice car is boring. I drive a 2002 Mercury Sable. In the past few years, I have broken down a few times times and had to be towed. I find that more interesting than knowing with certainty that you will actually get to work. I have had to park in the parking garage at our office by backing in so I can get a jump start if I need one. For the past year, the a/c in my car didn't work, and the driver's side window didn't work. So during the summer, I would roll down the three windows to keep from overheating. The wind would blow through the car to create new hair styles each day, often something like the lead singer in a Flock of Seagulls from the 1980s. I could change my hair style based on how fast I drove to work. This is very interesting if you ask me, although now my a/c is working again and I don't have to wet my hair down when I get to work.
The car has a stereo, but the volume control has some quirk where sometimes turning the knob left decreases the sound volume, and sometimes turning the knob the same way increases the volume. (I'm not making this up.) I have turned songs that I hate up to full volume, and also turned songs that I love completely off because of this feature. Sometimes it is frustrating, but having a passenger experience this is very interesting. I've also experienced one other phenomena in commuting that I think is a little unusual: car dancing. That's right. Sometimes, on the way home, I will hear a certain song and the old moves come back right there in the car. Since I do have some dignity, I only dance in the car from the chest down so that no one can actually tell I'm going at it. If I was in stop and go traffic and you were next to me in the other lane, you would never notice that I'm actually dancing away to "Disco Inferno" because it's all done below the surface. I can moon walk, do the bump with the arm rest, and any other number of moves incognito. And even though my car is old, it is a luxury car with leather seats. So if I have put Armor All on the leather seats recently, it's ". . . slide, slide, slippity-slide, just forget about your troubles and your 9 to 5" and, if the traffic conditions are acceptable, I might disappear briefly while I drop down for a break dancing spin move before I resurface, hands back on the wheel in the 10-2 position. Car dancing is another thing that has helped break the monotony of commuting for me. What have you done to break the monotony of commuting?
With all of this commuting, you would think I would drive a nice car. I don't. To me, driving a nice car is boring. I drive a 2002 Mercury Sable. In the past few years, I have broken down a few times times and had to be towed. I find that more interesting than knowing with certainty that you will actually get to work. I have had to park in the parking garage at our office by backing in so I can get a jump start if I need one. For the past year, the a/c in my car didn't work, and the driver's side window didn't work. So during the summer, I would roll down the three windows to keep from overheating. The wind would blow through the car to create new hair styles each day, often something like the lead singer in a Flock of Seagulls from the 1980s. I could change my hair style based on how fast I drove to work. This is very interesting if you ask me, although now my a/c is working again and I don't have to wet my hair down when I get to work.
The car has a stereo, but the volume control has some quirk where sometimes turning the knob left decreases the sound volume, and sometimes turning the knob the same way increases the volume. (I'm not making this up.) I have turned songs that I hate up to full volume, and also turned songs that I love completely off because of this feature. Sometimes it is frustrating, but having a passenger experience this is very interesting. I've also experienced one other phenomena in commuting that I think is a little unusual: car dancing. That's right. Sometimes, on the way home, I will hear a certain song and the old moves come back right there in the car. Since I do have some dignity, I only dance in the car from the chest down so that no one can actually tell I'm going at it. If I was in stop and go traffic and you were next to me in the other lane, you would never notice that I'm actually dancing away to "Disco Inferno" because it's all done below the surface. I can moon walk, do the bump with the arm rest, and any other number of moves incognito. And even though my car is old, it is a luxury car with leather seats. So if I have put Armor All on the leather seats recently, it's ". . . slide, slide, slippity-slide, just forget about your troubles and your 9 to 5" and, if the traffic conditions are acceptable, I might disappear briefly while I drop down for a break dancing spin move before I resurface, hands back on the wheel in the 10-2 position. Car dancing is another thing that has helped break the monotony of commuting for me. What have you done to break the monotony of commuting?