The Whirligig of Time Brings in His Revenges

This Monday morning-- the darkest of all Monday mornings, the Monday morning closest to the winter solstice, the Monday morning when your alarm yanks you from the deep warm womb of sleep, despite the fact that the stars and moon are still lambently effulgent . . . not that I'm making excuses, but I would just like to point out, for the record, that I was certainly groggy-- anyway, this morning I made my usual left turn from Cranbury Road into my school but the traffic was backed up and the officer manning the light shortchanged me on my left arrow time and so I became that person . . . that person that is stuck in the intersection blocking traffic, that idiot, that grid-locker: cars were weaving around me, drivers were giving me hateful stares, there was some beeping and, once I realized I was NOT going to execute the left turn, I had to do some tentative backing up, a lame attempt to get out of the way; once I finally made the turn, I convinced myself that I was not to blame, I rationalized that it was all the traffic officer's fault-- he was asleep at the wheel, not me (and all my sympathies were with him, as it was the darkest Monday of the year) but unfortunately my friend Kevin was behind me at the light and he snapped a picture of my vehicular gaffe and sent it to me, with the terse but accurate caption "Moron" underneath . . . and then he added a deserved addendum: "That's the guy who gives his wife a hard time about filling up the gas tank."