An Irrational Man

What recurrent situation in your life most frequently brings out your irrational side?

Traffic does it for me. I've lost track of how many techniques I've tried over the years to help me get this more under control. And impatient as I can be when traffic interferes with my life near home, if I happen to be away on vacation and get stuck somewhere sitting in a car, oh boy.

The Great Courses CDs from the Teaching Company are a reliable way to keep my irrational side under control in traffic near home. But carrying those with me on an airplane is not practical. Books on tape, also only practical for driving vacations, are additionally not as dependable as lectures. A bad narrator - or worse, a bad book - makes any traffic, near or far from home, even more unpleasant. Though my I-pod - easy to take anywhere - has held the beast at bay on many occasions, the battery in it has also let me down several times. Invariably, a big traffic jam is nearby.

Wait, a bright light. Standing still in horrendous traffic in the Florida Keys last winter, I was saved by Little Stevie's Underground Garage and Deep Tracks. I resolved right there to never again rent a car without satellite radio. Wait, another light, quite a bit dimmer. If satellite radio worked to keep me semi-rational in Florida traffic ...