by Jocelyn Jane Cox
Do you refuse to believe there will ever be a new Tappan Zee Bridge until you actually see it? Even if it does come to fruition, we probably all have just a few more trips to take across the current one. In the mean time, here are some ways to make that turtle-paced crawl more endurable. In fact, with these simple tools, you may even begin to look forward to your stay on the TZB.
- Utilizing a cellular phone and a hands-free device, speed-dial the numbers of everyone you know. Once someone makes the mistake of picking up, babble about inanities for far to long, even though she’s right in the middle of something i.e. work, getting ready for work, or bathing her two year-old twins. After all, you’re lonely and you’ve got a few hours to kill.
- Roll down your window and introduce yourself to the driver next to you. Even if he’s engaged in activity #1 (above), flail your arms as if it’s an emergency. When he gives you his attention, say, ‘€œHi. Traffic’s pretty rough today, huh?’€ When he inches forward just far enough so that you’re out of his earshot, repeat the process with the driver on the other side of you.
- Combine deep, cleansing breaths with positive thoughts. Think, for example, about kittens playing with a ball of yarn. Whatever you do, don’t think about that bridge that fell in Minnesota a few years ago.
- Plan to start your own grassroots ‘€œNew MTA Train Line on the Bridge’€ campaign, funded largely by bake sales. Of course, you don’t realistically have time to organize it, let alone bake your heart out, because you spend all your time on the current Tappan Zee Bridge.
- Use the mirror on the back of your visor to investigate The Pore Situation. Are your pores getting bigger or is your face is getting smaller?
- Try to come up with the perfect formula for combating early morning sun glare: sunglasses + car visor + baseball cap + blind fold. If all else fails, close your eyes. (it’s your chance to add a few more Z’s to the Tappan “Zee.”)
- Calculate just how hard it would be to swim across the river. After all, you did take swimming lessons as a kid and they do make all kinds of fabric nowadays that claim to ‘€œwick’€ moisture away. Surely you could be dry by the time you get to work.
- Eat. Always pack an XL cooler full of trip treats. It has been scientifically proven that nothing passes the time more effectively than caramel corn, caramel apples and caramels. Napkins recommended.
- Imagine that you live in one of those fabulous houses overlooking the water. Though your life is already just fine, feel certain that it would be better in every conceivable way if you had a wall of windows to the Hudson. Then again, you’d also have to look at the Tappan Zee and all its construction’€¦and don’t you see that enough already?
Good luck. And see you…waiting in traffic…on the bridge.
Jocelyn Jane Cox is a local freelance writer who writes TheHomeTome.com, a home and humor blog with a Nyack slant.
