PSA: Hell Hath No Fury Like Virginia
[***This Public Service Announcement is especially relevant for those people living in the Mid-Atlantic States through the Northeast***]
Have you ever thought about Hell?
I mean really thought about what Hell might be like? I know the whole fire and brimstone spiel, but seriously…what is Hell?
Lots of people have different theories on Hell. Some say its your worst nightmare happening to you over and over again for eternity. Like for instance, say you are a white racist and black people and their potential to be everywhere really scares you, Hell would be having a taxi drop you off in Harlem on the corner of 145th and Amsterdam, every hour, forever. Or say you are a black person who hates white people and is afraid of what can be at the hands of the white man. Hell would be having to wake up everyday forever only to realize that white people run the world, and there is nothing you can do about it or say about it, for fear of being put in jail, having to deal with living in substandard conditions with poor education.
Umm. Well?ƒ?I mean?ƒ?I?ƒ¥m just sayin.
Anywho?ƒ?
Some say Hell is the place where you go to burn eternally for your sins and for your inability to ask for forgiveness. Shit is just hot. Like the club…except at this club you can’t leave and all the women have gonorrhea and/or herpes, and all men are short with Napolean complexes and wear fake Versace shirts, and the DJ only plays shit like Coolio and Skeelo, and hell (no pun inteded) every other song by a dude with a name that ends in “o”…and Will Smith records, and all drinks are Rum 151 and Rum 151 only. Basically…its hell.
Well today, I’m here to present a different spin on Hell. You see, I’ve been there. In fact, I’ve been there many times, sometimes due to my own fault or because I had no way to get away from there. It’s not like I wanted to go to Hell…but I was stuck. There was no other way for me to go. And no…its not like I did anything to warrant going to Hell…but sometimes, you just end up there…whether you want to be there or not. I know its fucked up…but I’m not the only person who’s been to hell either. In fact…most people that live in the Washington, DC, area have been to Hell.
Wait? What?? Washington, DC? Is close to hell? Da hell (once again no pun intended) are you talking about? Another barrage of questions? Again??? Will he ever stop? Can he stop, will he stop??? Isn’t this annoying???
Why yes, it is acutally.
So what is hell you ask…well shit, I’ll tell you. Hell, ladies and gentlemen, is the I-95 corridor between Washington, DC and Richmond, Virginia. This is the only got damn place in the United States that is GUARANTEED to have at least one direction (North/South) completely entrenched in piss you the fuck off traffic on any given day of the year. And I know some people who may live in California or New York are like…dude, we got traffic here, what’s the big deal? Well, let me introduce you to Hell.
[***Sidenote: I will be offering various geography lessons during the course of discussing Hell. I will also do a lot of discussing of the Washington, DC, metro area. If you do not live in this area...you can still learn from this. If you are like, I'll never go to DC so why do I give a fuck...well...please burn in Hell one day for me...and by that I mean, may you get stuck on your way from NY to Atlanta in a car with no air conditioner in July in Hell AKA I-95, while I drive by you with my AC and an oldies CD featuring Lenny Williams, "Cause I Love You." Thank you.***]
Welcome to the great state of Virginia. Now, I personally can’t stand Virginia outside of our beltway (I-495)…its just a weird place. Shit that exists inside the Beltway, which includes Washington, DC and my suburbs of Maryland, and let?ƒ¥s include the rest of Maryland, makes sense…but that damn Virginia is just a fucked up place. Which explains why Hell would be in Virginia. I mean, of all the places in America, to include Mississippi, Utah, etc…it surprises me none that Virginia would house Hell.
So let me discuss Hell a little bit more in depth, so you’ll understand where you’ll be going when you fuck up.Most of us have been stuck in traffic before. Especially folks in LA, Atlanta, New York City, Chicago, etc. Most of the time, somebody has been in a car accident, and you are pissed for the most part that they had the nerve to get into an accident and fuck up traffic for miles…but once you get started going again, you get over it. So let me ask you….what would you do if you were NEVER able to get out of traffic. As in, the entire about 90 miles between two major cities was entirely full of traffic. As in…you wished somebody was in a 60-car pileup just so you’d have a reason to really have been sitting there for that long only to have gone 5 miles. Wait…what is that long??
Example: One day, myself and an entourage of upwardly mobile black people decided that we’d make a trip from the DC suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, to Paramount’s Kings Dominion Amusement Park. It is located in Doswell, Virginia, roughly 20 miles north of Richmond, Virginia. This means we had an about 70 mile trip to make…from exit 175 to exit 98. Hmm…sound easy enough right? Well mi compadres…this muhfuckin’ trip took something close to 4 hours to make. FOUR. CUATRO. QUATRE. FO’. THREE PLUS ONE. TWO PLUS TWO. For 70 got damn miles. Now I don’t know about you…but let’s be real. You can do 70 miles nowadays in under an hour if you are really pushing it. I like to speed. I have several speeding tickets to my name to prove this fact. And it was all highway miles. We literally sat in traffic for the entire 4 hours. This is enough time to determine that you hate somebody. Not that this occured, I’m just saying. And guess how long it took us to get back?
One hour.
Every time I’ve been driving back to Atlanta from DC, or heading to Durham, NC, and had to take this stretch of dastardly highway, I’ve encountered enough piss me off traffic to make me want to smack the shit out of everybody on the highway. Which is why I determined it was hell. You see, while on this stretch of road, I’ve had more un-right thoughts than in anywhere else. It’s the place where I’ve wanted to get violent, where I wanted to come up with some way to maybe knock off a few folks to make my trip faster. Anything that would be looked unfavorably upon my the Man/Woman Upstairs.
And think about this…sitting in traffic gives you time to think. A lot. Say you just had a bad day. Or hell you’re white and you got fired. And you work in DC, but live in Stafford (like 40 miles South of DC). What do you really think is going to consume your thoughts? You might even convince yourself that going back to your job with a Bushmaster rifle to take our your boss is a good idea…all because you’ve had time to think about that shit. And everybody knows…if you think it, it might happen. Unless you’re black and you are just used to getting fired, in which case you are still pissed that you are sitting in traffic. Hell.
The traffic breeds pissedoffedness causing road rage and shit like this…which would only happen in Virginia…which would only house a stretch of highway from DC to Richmond that is capable of being hell…
[TRUE STORY ALERT! TRUE STORY ALERT!]
…a man drives home drunk. Another man drives home from work. Workman gets a flat. Workman changes tire on I-95 Hellway. Drunkman hits Workman and Workman gets stuck in the grill of Drunkman’s truck. Drunkman drives all the way home with Workman stuck in his grill…and leaves him there….for a few days.
People, shit like that doesn’t happen in normal stretches of highway. But in Hell, anything is possible. And that my friends is my warning to you. If ever you are driving through Washington, DC, and you are going North towards of South from, essentially…
…you’re goin’ to Hell.
Moral of the Story: Fly bitch, fly.
***EDIT (10/16/04): Check out the new homie, Shan AKA Nash Diddy, over at her new blog, Shan’s Spot. She keeps me laughing in real life, so I’m sure she will keep you laughing on these e-streets!***