The Road to Hell is Paved... That's All It's Just Paved.

There are many things you can do in the span of eight hours. You could take a flight to to France, have tantric sex or wait for a Joe Louis to pass through your body. All of which are way more fun than waiting in a traffic jam on the 401.

Both take 8 hours to pass through the intestines

I live in a province where Family Day is observed, a day off to spend with your loved ones. Suck on it New Brunswick, enjoy your work day.  What better way to spend Family Day then in a car where every idiosyncrasy of your loved ones are magnified to the point where it’s probably best you can’t gain enough momentum to careen your car into the median killing you all.

I blame my parents who were selfish enough not to move from the community they’ve lived in and made lives for themselves for 32 years rather than move to a giant smog filled impersonal city.

Monsters

That, and this mess...

Ironically the transport was carrying a shipment of Weebles

This is what kept us trapped in a car for eight hours, a trip that should take about three-and-a-half. Traffic jams of this magnitude are a true test of sanity. When we first stopped I was steadfast about not moving to another lane. As history and comedians from the 80‘s has proven, that lane immediately stops once you enter it. It was so tantalizing that lane... moving at 10km/hour instead of our 5km/hour. That’s like -15 for you Americans. I didn’t do it though. Then we came to an offramp. I got into that lane and suddenly the highway was clear. It called to me like a siren’s song, “Clear, clear, join me, lay your tires upon my face.” I did it only to discover this around the bend.

Sonabitch!

That’s when we were trapped in traffic for the majority of the eight hours.

When trapped in a car that long you go through all five stages of grief.

1. Denial
“This can’t be that long a traffic jam. Really how long can it take to get to the next exit. If I just restart my phone twenty times to get a connection we’ll see that the next exit is only seconds away.”

2. Anger
“Goddamn it! Why the hell are there so many assholes in front of me? Why is my wife breathing so loudly? I’m going to punch this traffic jam in the throat.”

3. Bargaining
“Okay, so if we start moving right now I’ll stop masturbating for a year...” I left out the part where I said a year on Mercury. You know, just in case it worked.

4. Depression
“If we drove a winnebago I might be able to hang myself and bring sweet relief to this day. Stupid Sedan.”

5. Acceptance
“Okay, if we set the front seats on fire we could cook and eat the dropped Cheerios on the floor as well as stay warm tonight. Once we get internet access we’ll change our mailing address to here. I wonder what the postal code is for the 401?”

The highlight of the trip was when my five-year-old announced she needed to have a poo. I threw on the emergency lights and parked by the side of the road. My wife went to the bushes with her as I watched cars slowly moved past us, jealous of the five car lengths they got before she returned to the car.

It turned out that my daughter has a shy anus and refused to poop in the woods saying she didn’t need to. I merged back into the parking lot and ten minutes later my daughter once again announced she had to poo. It was my turn to go to the woods.

Once we were there she refused again. I begged and pleaded, explaining that I had no idea when we would make it to a bathroom. I offered to hold her up in my arms so she wouldn’t have to squat in the snow. I would have tried to aim at something, using her bottom like a disgusting Nerf gun. No dice. Back to the car we went.

We drove again, and again ten minutes later she made the announcement, with the same results in the woods. As a parent it’s important to not make a big deal about using the washroom for a kid. If you do, you could give them some weird complex later in life. However, panic does start to set in when there is the possibly of sitting in a car with soiled pants. Especially when the wearer of said pants just ate McDonalds food.

We sang her songs of pooping our pants as children and how humiliating and uncomfortable it was. Mine involved an autumn pants pooping at recess and an attempt to clean up before class using fallen leaves. Scratchy and I’m sure a joy for my mother to clean up.

Now do you want to jump in it?

We decided to ignore the issue and continue quietly seething about the traffic. At some point we went off the deep end. My wife started playing ukelele, while I entertained passing motorists with a moose hand puppet that the kids had grown tired off two hours earlier.

"Hi I'm Morton Moose. I'll suck your cock for a helicopter ride out of here."

Madness sure does make the time fly by. At once point I went on a diatribe of how I had become one with the car. My hands permanently fused to the steering wheel, my eyes changing shape to that of headlights. I was to be known as Sedanson from this point on. “Put the gas nozzle in my bellybutton and feed me premium you cheap bastard!”

To my daughter’s credit she made it to the next exit another three hours later. Where a Tim Hortons was overrun with bulging bladders.

Come to poop and stay for the Tim Bits, they look the same.

I changed the baby in the front seat of the car while my wife took the eldest into the restaurant. She pleaded with people to let her cut in line as it stretched out the door. Most adults were sympathetic and let them go ahead, until she reached the first two women in line who said they had to go too. My wife explained the situation, that my daughter is five-years-old and has had to go for hours. One woman said she was forty-five, “Forty-five, five, what’s the difference?” I believe the answer is that the five-year-old was more mature.

We got home in time to put the kids to bed and lay down ourselves, our bodies still contorted into sitting position. We can’t wait for our Easter trip to visit family. I know it will be different. For one we will all be wearing diapers...


**special thanks to Jen Hendriks at My Sensitive Girl Hole for the picture of Morton Moose.