The rush hours

The calculations for rush hour always lasts well into two. Add vacation to the equation, and a person must factor in two more hours no matter what time they set off on their destination. 

These have always been the rules.

If you travel, eventually you will face wall-to-wall traffic. Sometimes it stops you in your tracks, and other times you may be swept up in its current, forced to move along with it like a school of fish.

It's been a while since I've rushed into the latter's dizzying fray.

Cars are jockeying for position all around me. I pass a red station wagon twice as we buzz along in the same direction. 

As drivers, we casually acknowledge the initial overtake, but then we pretend to have blinders on as we continue to go neck and neck on this track of highway. 

We are in a race to get home. And this girl in the red wagon is my secret rival.

Her car is laden with the after-effects of a holiday: Surfboards, lightly breaded with sand, are mounted to the car's luggage racks. Bicycles are affixed to the hatch at jaunty angles, their tires spinning slowly in the wind. Colorful beach stickers, stacked one on top of another, curl up at their edges. This car looks to be the well-traveled suitcase of lore.

Rust and dust mingle at the edges of everything in the girl's old rattletrap, signaling memories that have been resurrected to revisit the "good old days," people are always talking about. 

I am behind the wheel of a new car. The gears shift easily, and the ride is smooth. I am in unfamiliar territory in this vehicle - the passing lane. I effortlessly exceed speed limits as I pass car after car on the left.

The boy in my passenger side quietly plays a video game. We listen to the mechanical lady in the phone project directions through the fancy new screen in the dashboard where radios used to be.

Every now and then, he pauses to pet the dog in the backseat, who is panting uncomfortably. The dog hates the car even more when every floor space is taken up with leftover luggage the trunk couldn't store.

The dog is used to driving in the other car: the one with the seats that fold down and the epic amounts of sand from the beach. This car gives her no room to pace.

She looks at it wistfully we pass again and groans. The boy pets her head. 

The man in the passenger side of the girl's car doesn't need computer navigation. He could make this trip in his sleep. He is used to being "The Driver," and he's never once missed an exit and found himself in Cape Cod. 

The girl behind the wheel is too young to know all the secrets of her car's aged effects. But she a confidant of her competence. Her father is relaxed.

She's just a teenager who, for the first time, is driving all the way home.

And she's going to be furious when I get there first.