Back-to-school blues

Today was Day # 2 of the back-to-school saga here in the Atlanta tri-county area. Again this morning, I made myself get up shortly after 5:00am to get ready for work and on the road by 6:00-6:15am...in order to miss the school traffic. Yes, this is my punishment for living in a "high" social class area of Cobb County where the suburban mothers think they have to get up each morning and drive little "Ashton" and little "Carson" to school because they are too good to ride the school bus. And when all those mothers in their massive Excursions and Suburbans pile up on the road, the ride into work for the rest of us all-year-long-worker-bees is plain chaos. Add to the humongous SUV a few screaming spoiled rotten brats, a mother who either talking on the cell phone and/or reading her text messages and emails and juggling her coffee while yelling at the kids to behave... well then you have a vehicle of pure craziness multiplied by all the other similar-situationed yuppy parents trying to haul their kids in to school too! How do I fit into all of this? Well I don't. I am just trying to program myself to get my unwilling butt out of bed an hour earlier each morning so I can drive to work in peace and flowing traffic (and stopping in for a grande cup of frothy goodness too)... this really does helps seem to keep my stress level down. It is just not healthy to show up for work already raging angry about some lady that cut me off on the ramp to Spaghetti Junction while only moving 45 mph to my 65 mph or the white van of painters with the 29 ladders stacked on top (threatening to fall off the top at any second!) who is blocking the merging lane or the fast lane with no signs of ever moving out of the way. Of course, even though I had no problem with my ride to work this morning, the basketball goal and backboard taking up the entire emergency lane and half the fast lane on I-285 did somewhat rattle my nerves this morning... who hauls and then loses one of those on an interstate for pete's sake?? Yes, all I can do is pray for patience... patience to survive the traffic in this city and not choke someone at the same time... Amen.