The Chosen One

Do you ever feel like.....

.... a plastic bag?  No Katy Perry, I never have.  But I have felt like the world is out to get me.  I remember once I said to my boss (back in 2008), "do you ever have those days where you just feel like the universe has it out for you?"  She thought for a minute and said, "no, I never feel like that."  I remember thinking yeah... sure... then you're not human.  

Haven't we all felt that way?  

Last night I went over to my friend Alena's house for dinner.  My parents and sister are out of town and Corky was hanging out with his brother.  So I went and spent an enjoyable evening with Alena and her family.  I drove home at around 10:30pm.  I was approaching a stop light, on a two-lane road, and the light was red.  I looked ahead and saw that the left lane had about 5 cars in it, waiting for the light, and the right lane had 2 cars in it.  Naturally, I figured the lane with fewer cars would accelerate faster out of the intersection.  So I went in the right lane.  Well, wouldn't you know it, ALL FIVE CARS in the left lane made it out of the intersection before I even got into it!  

This seemed familiar, I thought.  This happens to me all the time on the freeway, especially on Tuesday nights (oh, wait, that's tonight!) when I'm trying to drive to Tualatin to teach a Zumba class at 6:3opm.  Teaching a class at that location at that time means I have to drive down highway 217.  At rush hour (which is basically just "rush" because it's crowded all day every day.)  And I swear to GOD, it doesn't matter which lane I'm in - the other lane ALWAYS moves faster.  

Right?  Right??  That happens to you all the time too, right?  But here's the thing....

HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE????

How is it possible that we ALL are in the same situation?  I do mean "all."  Every single person I have ever described that scenario to is like "YES! Oh my god I KNOW!  Every single time!!"  And I'm thinking, so either every single person is in the same lane all the time and the rest of the cars are apparitions, or we're all just really fucking jaded. Or we all overgeneralize (do you like how I overgeneralized there by saying 'we all overgeneralize? Haha.)  Probably that's the explanation but I was just thinking, how is this chosen?

What if it really was like this?  I, Kate, am always supposed to be in the slowest lane.  Why?  Says who?  How is this decided?  Clearly we can't ALL be in the slowest lane all the time because there has to be a slowest lane.  In order for there to be a slowest lane, there has to be lanes going faster.  They've got to have people in those lanes!  So how is this decided?  Is it like a lucky day kind of thing?  Or is this predetermined?

A lot of things are predetermined.  Cancer, autism, socio-economic class, addiction even!  Why shouldn't "slow lane" be one of them?  I don't mean to get all existential on you guys but... if God is so on top of everything that he/she/it has every detail of our lives planned out down to the color of pen we'll use on our homework each day, then why wouldn't traffic be planned too?  I just don't understand.

Maybe I just need to relax a little.  Maybe I need to leave for work an extra 20 minutes early.  Or maybe I just wish I could catch a break!