Nancy Williams: Stuck in traffic? Play the ‘could be worse’ game.

Recently headed to the airport with a couple of others in the car, we landed in standstill traffic. The back way was as jammed as the front way. That’s happened a couple of times lately. Airport says arrive two hours before departure time. I say allow at least an additional two hours to drive the 20 miles to get to the airport, sometimes three hours. Long gone are the days you could leave town at 1 p.m. for a 2 p.m. flight and skate in barely under the wire.

Sitting in the lines of cars on the interstate and hardly moving an inch for nearly an hour, I was grumpy. I tried to make a game of it and told others in the car it could always be worse. I asked my friends to help me think of things that would make bad traffic more bad. Other than medical reasons, what makes traffic even more dreadful? They wouldn’t play along, but it didn’t stop me.

The pressure of a certain time to be somewhere makes being trapped in traffic worse. Like getting to work or to an appointment. Or to the airport. Obviously missing a plane is hugely inconvenient, but there’s a point after panic and increased effort, where you accept you aren’t going to make it. You shrug and say dang. And these days, if you do make it, there’s a decent chance the flight is going to be canceled anyway.

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The deadline to be somewhere for a big life event. Worry about being tardy to weddings and funerals came to mind. As did the reminder that if you are the star of either of those events, no worries. Your wedding will not go on without you. And if you are the star of the funeral, you are not stuck in traffic.

Sitting in traffic would be way more stressful if your car had issues. Such as overheating, almost out of gas, flat tire. The car I was riding in during my most recent traffic jam was a manual transmission and the thousand clutchy moments of stop-and-go traffic made the ride pretty jerky. Would also be tough to be in a car without AC when you are sitting still on pavement on a 95 degree day. Some help for a car without AC can be found by rolling down the windows and having the breeze of zipping down the highway. But if you’re merely sitting and baking with no breeze and melting, ugh. Swelter City.

Traffic-sitting anxiety is compounded by body and biological processes like needing a potty or being hungry. On less traveled highways, when you absolutely have to, you can pull over to the emergency lane for emergency relief. In several lanes of stand-still traffic, in front of hundreds of bored drivers, I’m not sure you can pull off sneaking a quick private moment. I guess many a traffic-blocked car has ended up with a wet seat.

Regarding hunger, I’m probably covered. I almost always have “purse food” in my pocketbook. Not just a pack of crackers, but often half a hamburger or a leftover chicken wing. My food-safety obsessed friends are mortified I’d eat a wing from the day before when it’s been in my purse. Sitting in traffic and bored, I usually start rooting through my purse and inevitably find a snack. At least a rogue M&M or couple of grapes. I offer to share, however no one else in the car ever wants any.

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One of my all-time favorite stories about people stuck in traffic is from when all cars were stopped due to a sudden ice storm on New Year’s Eve several years ago. Lots of folks spent that night in their cars. One young woman I know had been headed to a potluck dinner/costume party with her husband. She was dressed as a French maid and he was dressed as a butler. For their contributions to the supper, they’d brought a gallon of homemade chili and a gallon of margaritas, both of which they hit on heavily for the stuck-on-the-highway-all-night emergency. The two of them stayed 12 hours in the car and had a ball. Onboard was everything they needed for an awesome party, just fewer guests than they’d expected.

The other passengers with you can make or break your traffic-sitting experience. One of the folks in the car on the way to the airport with me said it would be dreadful to be stuck in traffic in a car with a talker. (Uh-oh, sorry.) My personal nightmare would be stuck with a bawling baby. I’m not mean and don’t want to offend, but I simply cannot abide crying children for long. I’m certain if there was a crying child in the car when traffic was moving a foot a minute, I’d get out and walk alongside the car.

One friend said her ultimate Hades would be being trapped in a car with country music playing on the radio. Ha. For me, it wouldn’t be any particular genre of music, torment is really loud music. I guess I have tender ears. I’m also irrationally sensitive to someone talking while the radio is playing. I don’t need traffic to make that annoying. I’m a firm either/or in the case of either we talk or we radio. I can’t handle both.

I’m not as good at traffic as the big city residents I know. They get used to it. Unfortunately, I’m getting lots of practice at it these days. To cope better, when I next have to make a trip to the airport in the middle of the day, I’m going to toss a gallon of chili and a jug of beverage in the trunk. Maybe a couple of costumes. Some kazoos, fingernail polish, balloon animal supplies, and a trumpet.

Ya’ know, stuff to do until cars start moving.

This is the opinion of Nancy Williams, the coordinator of professional education at UNC Asheville. Contact her at nwilliam@unca.edu.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Nancy Williams: Stuck in traffic? Play the ‘could be worse’ game.