LUXEMBOURG-VILLE — A resident of the capital was shocked on Monday morning after spending nearly an hour driving only 3.2 kilometers to get to work, oblivious that such congestion is now normal.
“I wonder if there was an accident?” he said to himself at the same moment thousands of other flummoxed drivers were asking the same question to which the answer was no — no there was not.
“It’s probably just because of the construction for the tram line,” the man tried to reassure himself. “The traffic will get better in a few months.”
“Wait, I know, it’s because it’s the first day back from the holidays, and everyone is getting used to commuting again, and maybe we all woke up late, yeah, that’s it,” he went on to further delude himself. “It’ll be fine tomorrow.”
“No, I’ve got it, it’s because of the French train strikes, that’s why there are so many cars on the road today,” he added as a final testament to his refusal to acknowledge that there are simply too many cars in the capital, and that driving in the city will forevermore be marked by waiting, stress, and the slipping away of precious hours every workday. “For a moment, I was kind of worried it would always be like this.”
A source close to the man has confirmed that the following day he was stuck in an even worse traffic jam, yet that he made no connection to the events of the day before and instead mused about the unlikelihood of car accidents occurring along the same stretch of road two mornings in a row.