Fun & Famous
SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR IN THE TRAFFIC JAM
by Adeline Mans
When you were on vacation, I zoomed along with the racing monster on my A4 to Amsterdam. No one dared to appear on that road. But now that the fun is over, I too must be happy in line. Traffic jams are for the working person what swearing is in church. One problem: you can hardly ever avoid it. To ease all your traffic woes: the list of entertainment to survive that slow situation.
Alternative routes
I said you can hardly ever avoid it, right? But if your friends from Flitsmeister or the VID bring you the news on time, go for plan B. The calculation is a piece of cake. What is your travel time including traffic and what time span does the winding road take? If that last one is equal to or less than the first, take the exit without hesitation. Turn on your blinker and make a hard right. Think of it as a road trip and don’t think about the time it costs you. A bookstore from the past, a boutique that screams your name, or the barista with coffee from your dreams. Who knows, you might spot a house and take that route to work two months later. Have you been on an adventure and house hunting instead of staring at the painter's slogan on the bus in front of you?.
A music stash
Is there no way out? Spotify, my friend. Put on some classics (no, not Highway to Hell) and turn those square meters into your own DJ booth. Keep windows and doors closed, because no one (and I mean no one) needs to hear your rendition of Hit me baby one more time . Your steering wheel is a drum set, the water bottle a microphone, and you prefer to sing loudly and off-key. And that dude next to you who’s laughing his head off? You’ll never see him again (I hope).
Make yourself smarter
The recording function on your phone is the tool to become smarter. I studied between dancing on tables and midnight shawarma sessions, and then it’s important to use your time efficiently. The night before the exam, I recorded a summary on my recorder and listened to that summary in the traffic jam to the dreaded one. Yes, your voice really sounds like the recording. But if you forget that, you’ll get smarter from a traffic jam and just graduate. Have you gotten through that struggle? Tap into the Spaniard, Italian, or Russian in yourself, because an app with a language course is downloaded in no time. Prego.
Who goes where
Do you also wonder what all those people are doing on the road? They are the unaware source for my favorite in the traffic jam: who is who and goes where? That cheerful person with a bun is surely on her way to her salad bar with organic juices, where her laid-back boyfriend with a hipster beard is making Niçoise for healthy Amsterdammers. And that winking, well-groomed BMW driver is eating oysters and his handsome colleague at lunch in the Zuidas. Oh, or that lady with the station wagon and brown bob cut over there, who is first winning a lawsuit (yes, she’s a lawyer) and then picking up her handsome child from ballet class in Voorburg. If you see me, I’m just on my way to work, okay?.
Hi, it’s me
The car, and thus not the train, is the place to polish your social contacts. Just call, without hands, okay? Texting is great fun, but nothing beats a phone call with your friend in the other traffic jam. The score is almost a hundred percent that I’m in line when I call. Calling at breakfast is not human, during work hours it’s not appreciated, and back home you have to let the Nigella Lawson (minus the sniff) in yourself loose. The traffic jam is a prrrrima place to update her and yourself.
Breathe in, breathe out
I’m laying out all these options so nicely now, but there’s a good chance a tirade precedes this. I find traffic jams so pointless, so there has to be a strong term coming out loud in my car (preferably a bit vulgar). You’ll become anything but zen from it. But from ten minutes of inhaling and a bit longer exhaling, your heart rate goes down again and you let the traffic jam go within yourself. And then you are the most carefree traffic jam driver ever (don’t close your eyes, because that’s really dangerous).
Listening to the radio in sync
And when things get going again, but you’re still driving at a sluggish speed, your fellow road user is again the Sjaak. Edwin (Evers, but I hope I can just say Edwin) is about the only one I tolerate in the morning, because he doesn’t ask questions I’m supposed to answer. He just happens to have the most popular radio show, so logically there are more friends of Edwin on tour. A little bit of speed is needed for this activity, because the goal is to track down multiple Edwin road users. And just look for someone who is also belting out that song or laughing with you to the second. It creates a bond under those crawling kilometers.
