I don't have time but I HAVE to get this off my chest!

[closeupready]

Did you ever have a day when you look back at it, and you say to yourself, 'you really are losing your mind! what the fuck were you thinking?'

I had the worst commute today and I swear to God I really do think some days I'm turning into that guy from Network who tells everyone to stick their head out of their window, RIGHT NOW, and SCREAM AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS, "I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!" Not violence, just like one of those characters in old films that take place in insane asylums, where people are doing weird things due to their mental illness.

Thanks for listening, Lounge!

[Laffy Kat]

1. There, there.

Hugs to you.

[closeupready]

4. ...

Thx hon

[Laffy Kat]

16. Had one of those days myself a couple of weeks ago.

Thank Goddess for DU. I felt better as soon as I posted about it.

[hibbing]

2. It happens

Been there plenty of times. The problem I have is letting it go. I'm laying in bed at night thinking about something at work, or something else that isn't positive.

Peace

[closeupready]

5. Yes - I'm going

to try reading more: biographies, business, classics, junk, whatever... I mean, paperbacks, not online stuff.

[DFW]

3. I almost felt that way last night

I was on my back from Sprout City and at Aachen on the German border, the train stood still. They said that a train between Aachen and Düren had crashed into a "wild animal (usually a boar or a deer)," and the tracks were blocked. After half an hour, they came on the loudspeaker and said passengers going on to Düsseldorf were advised to get off and take a local train that went via one horse towns along the Dutch border. I did, and suddenly, the train I had been on left, which would have gotten me home sooner. Out in the cold, I waited for the milk train, and then it got into Düsseldorf just in time to miss the train to my little town. I had to wait another 25 minutes. Then my wife, who had said she would pick me up, had not turned on her cell phone, and was not around to pick me up.

I was not a happy camper either. Shit does, indeed, happen

[closeupready]

6. Wow! That's FAR worse than my piddly shit.

Funny how we myopically think our petty shit is such a big deal ... and then you read about kids who go hungry on weekends, or genocide in Syria, whatever, and you suddenly get perspective. Thanks for helping to put my own shit into perspective!

[DFW]

8. I travel almost every day for work.

I get stuck out in the rain or cold all the time. It doesn't make it any more fun, but I don't go batshit any more like I used to. I figured out early that it doesn't change anything.

[closeupready]

9. "go(ing) batshit" "doesn't change anything" - YES.

There we go. There will continue to be bad commutes. There will continue to be drama queens on the subway who thrive on pulling you in. There will continue to be stepped-on toes, spilled coffee, body odor, inclement weather, and everything else that bothered you THIS time.

The only sure way of eliminating these things, is to change your entire life, which I'm not going to do.

Cheers.

[DFW]

10. One time in Zavantem....

I was on an evening plane from Zavantem (Brussels Airport) to London, and the fog was so thick the plane could neither take off nor land at Heathrow. So, British Airways give us surface tickets, which included a cigar smoke filled bus which took an hour and a half to get to the Belgian coast, an overnight ferry to Dover (or Harwich, I forget), and there were no cabins, so I sat up all night with some drunk guys from Ireland and some Albanian crewmen. At 5:30 AM, we arrived in England, went through a long corridor smelling of vomit, waited an hour for British immigration, got a train into London (another 100 minutes) and took the tube to my friend's office. Most ANYTHING seemed bearable after that!!!

[closeupready]

11. Trying to think if I can top that, but

I think you win today's Booby Prize, lol.

Seriously, this has been therapeutic for me.

[DFW]

12. Then don't even ask me about the time I was stuck in Havana.....

Because Cubana's Soviet-made plane was too messed up to make a third try to get airborne!

[hibbing]

13. I love reading your posts about your travels

Sounds crazy to me, is the security just over the top there now or not? On edit, I mean the security traveling in Europe.


Peace

[DFW]

14. I'd call it "enhanced" but not over the top

At the airports, it's about the same as it always has been.

At the train stations in Paris and Brussels, to board an international train, you now have to pass a gauntlet of armed (machine guns!) cops and (in France) customs agents who compare your passport/Photo ID to your train ticket. It slows down the boarding process considerably, and you have to get there way earlier than you used to. I heard that as of Sunday, we will have to pass through metal detectors to board the Thalys trains from Paris to Belgium and Germany, which will add so much time to the trip that to get back here to Düsseldorf, I may go back to using Air France. I live less than 20 minutes by car from the Düsseldorf airport.

[Laffy Kat]

17. At least you get stuck in interesting places. nt

[DFW]

18. Havana is interesting

Its airport is NOT!

[steve2470]

21. wow that sucks

Merry Christmas to you and your family!

[DFW]

23. Thanks, Steve!

It's a madhouse of panic as usual.

Mom-in-law is down from northern Germany, one daughter flying in tomorrow from the USA, the other coming in from Frankfurt, and has demanded a wheel chair (she broke her ankle while skiing 2 weeks ago), and then three of us are off to South Carolina on a 6 AM flight a week from tomorrow. Other than that, everything is its usual boring self!

[PasadenaTrudy]

7. A Ned Beatty moment :) n/t

[csziggy]

15. Or a Howard Beale moment!

Long version:

[alarimer]

19. I nearly got run over in the crosswalk leaving work a couple of weeks

Because the asshole refused to stop for me and I was actually in the crosswalk (in MD, it's the law). I hit his car with my hand (on purpose), just tapped it really and yelled (but I'm sure he didn't hear me).

Still, I encounter this nearly every day there. Jackasses who refuse to stop for people crossing the street. And now that it's dark when I leave work, it's so much worse.

I hate people, I really do.

[closeupready]

20. Oh yeah. As a pedestrian, I've been struck by cars, twice!

The first time, the guy got out - and started YELLING AT ME!

More recently the second occurrence, the driver just kept on driving.

This is where experience makes you look like a crazy person to newcomers, but you know first-hand why natives have a reputation for acting 'weird' - it's not that they don't know that it appears they are acting weird; it's that 1) they don't care; and 2) the resulting set of circumstances helps make their lives better.

[Skittles]

22. pretty much every day