Commuting in the afternoon rush hour in the Atlanta metro region can be a real pain. Among the routes that test the northside commuter’s patience and anger management skills, the path from I-285 East to I-85 North is like a slow-moving epic battle scene repeated every weekday.

We begin on I-285 about a mile away from the exit. For anyone versed in an old fashioned sweet southern personality, there is little hope of switching lanes. You could use a signaling device to let your fellow miserable commuters know that you want to switch lanes. But that would let them know of your intentions. That means they can thwart your plans, and they will take any opportunity to do that.

I can see the Spaghetti Junction in the distance. We marvel in its concrete and asphalt beauty and revel in our pointless miserable lives. The engineers and contractors who designed and built this modern marvel command us to pray in reverence to their traffic-reducing solutions. Of course, there is no need to pray to them, or to thank them for what they’ve given to us. All we must do is throw them money with our gas taxes.

Our cars and trucks idle in this massive daily ritual. We spew more gas. We pay more of our taxes that barely support the very maintenance of these roads.

Oh, what the state could do with $111 million. Pay for more fixed-rail transit, perhaps? Oh, what I could do with $111 million! Hundreds of commuters around me dream on of days with more money wasted on our self indulgences and less time wasted in traffic.

Finally, we ascend toward our destination. We await that moment with fear and trembling when we can look toward I-85 North and find out what fate has in store for us.

Sitting in our great concrete parking lot in the sky, a wave of commuters would be angry if we weren’t so resigned to accepting what is only inevitable on the roads: more traffic. By the time we reach Pleasant Hill Road, the feelings are anything but pleasant. The old southern hospitality is driven out of all of us. The new southern surly dictates the rules of our roads.