Erik Mark Larson

Here’s what I miss about my work commute:

• Podcasts
• Sometimes seeing cool weather patterns while driving home.

Oh and if you’re interested, here’s what I don’t miss:

• Having to get up at least an hour before work started so I could be at my desk on time.
• Eating a breakfast behind the wheel of a car or missing breakfast completely.
• Traffic.
• That jerk in the silver BMW who cut me off and now I’m mad about it for the rest of my day.
• That feeling of nausea you get when you didn’t get enough sleep and you step outside to get in your car when it’s cold out.
• Leaving for work and realizing you’re out of gas, so you’re going to have to stop in a gas station during rush hour.
• Finding a parking space.
• Leaving work in the middle of the summer and the interior of your car is hotter than the surface of the sun.
• When your spouse calls you and says your kid broke their leg and they need your help, so you run to your boss and tell them you have to run, then you get in your car and drive through traffic for half an hour the whole time panicking about your kid’s leg.
• Leaving for work in the middle of the winter and having to scrape the ice off your windshield.
• Having to shovel your driveway before you leave in the morning so when you drive over the snow it doesn’t become perma-ice on your driveway all winter.
• Realizing you forgot your lunch, so now you need to decide if you want to drive back home or just go grab some fast food during lunch.
• Seeing that you’re due for an oil change and it hits you just how many miles you’re putting on this car.
• That one time you tried to be healthy and so you rode your bike to work but you didn’t realize just how long it takes for you to stop sweating so your work clothes are soaked by 9:30 am.
• Making plans with your family but trying to figure out if you have time to get home and get changed or if you should just go straight there.
• How often you buy new tires.
• Realizing 1 hour of my day, which is 5 hours a week, which is around 250 hours a year, which is basically 10 days of my year, 15 if you’re only looking at waking hours, which over a 40 year career is 600 days, which is oh my gosh I’m going to spend TWO YEARS OF MY LIFE COMMUTING TO WORK.
• When you spill the strawberry jam off your toast onto your shirt in the morning.

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