So I did the thing I never thought I’d do.  I swore I would never do.  I prayed I wouldn’t ever have to do.  I took a job that involves commuting.

Just hearing the word – commuting – brings on near-convulsions.  I recognize this is a commuter town.  People here, normal people, people like me and you, work 60, 75, 90 minutes or more from their homes, and hardly think twice about it.  “I think of commuting like credit card debt,” a co-worker told me last week.  “It’s a necessary evil.”  For him, maybe, but not for me.  Having a baby by myself, raising a willful, high-maintenance daughter as a single parent:  piece of cake.  Commuting, on the other hand,  makes me want to jump off a bridge.

For the past 14 years I’ve had the same job in downtown Atlanta, a quick zip down the road from my home in Decatur.  I planned it that way, because I couldn’t bear the thought of a longer commute.  Some of my friends traded up, moved further out, so they could buy the bigger house with the bigger lawn and backyard, maybe even a pool.  None of those things was worth the peace of mind of knowing the ride home from work wouldn’t kill me.

And now here I am, crawling through the back roads of Atlanta like every other commuting fool who thinks she will beat the traffic on the interstates.  There is no easy way home.  Every evening after a long day at work, I gird my loins for another battle.  I think about my teenage daughter who has been out of school and home, hopefully alone, for hours.  I listen to the most soothing music I have on my ipod, to no avail.  A friend recommended books on tape – at least I’ll be transported in a different way.  I wonder what else I could be doing with that time.  I can already tell my cell phone bill is going to skyrocket.  My therapy bill too, prolly.

And this is just the third week on the job.

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Randy Foster is a confused communications professional who was recently laid off from her job of 22 years, and thus unemployed for the first time in 34 years. She has no earthly idea what she wants to do with the rest of her life, but figured things can't get any riskier, so what the hell. Randy is also the single mother of a very high maintenance teen-aged daughter who remains the greatest risk of all.
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