my worst case scenario: it's 10pm. i'm on my way home from a very exhausting evening of driving, picking up, driving, shopping, driving driving driving. i'm 20 minutes from home, pushing 75 miles an hour. cruising, singing, driving. and then it stops. traffic is not moving. it's 10pm. what the hell is going on? i turn on the radio. traffic on the ones.

there's a massive accident not even a quarter of a mile up. a head-on collision. a police chase. the fugitive was driving 70 miles an hour in the carpool lane--going east on a highway that travels west--and smashed into some unsuspecting carpool driver. twenty police cars, four fire trucks and two ambulances pass by. helicopters fly overhead. like in the movies.

traffic is stopped. my engine is on, but i am running out of gas. i have to go pee, but there is no bathroom in sight. i can't even make a phonecall, because my cellphone battery is dying, and i may need it later.

after five minutes, people turn off their engines and step out of their cars out to see the commotion. but there is no commotion. to my right, is an annoyed girl on the phone. to my left, two guys stand on the bed of the truck, taking puffs of a cigarette and swigs out of a bottle. it might be beer; nobody's here to bust them, anyway. someone's turned on his hazard lights. someone's pumped up the bass. i am sitting in my car alternately peering out the crack of my window and the windshield, but i feel like i'm staring at a movie screen. this is not real.

i sit in the pitch black darkness, motionless. i don't really know what to do, so i just listen to the traffic on the other side of the freeway and the helicopter propellers. i curse the freeway, i curse LA, i curse cell phones, i curse cars, i curse boys, i curse criminals. if i lived here i'd be home by now.

i wish i had a book to read. i wish i had a laptop. i wish i at least had my camera, so i could have proof that this is really happening. i do have my journal, so i open it up and write:

how it could be worse:
1. i could pee in my pants
2. i could run out of gas
3. this could be an empty desert road
4. i could be late to meet someone
5. i could be trying to catch a flight
6. this could have been yesterday, in which case my car would not be fixed
7. that could have been me