On that note...
To get to work on time I have to leave the house at about 6:15 to catch a train to Boston. If I need a little extra prep time in the morning I have to leave by 5:15 to catch the earlier train. Because of this, it is almost always dark when I get into my car. There a couple of weeks after we "fall back" where this isn't the case but it doesn't last long. My point, and I do have one, is that it is dark AND deserted at that hour of the morning. So, being a person with a relatively active (and often NOT helpful) imagination, I regularly convince myself that there is a murderous stowaway hiding in my back seat as I drive to the train station in the pre-dawn darkness.
Obviously, this is not a welcome thought and it gives me the creeps every time. I can almost smell the stale sweat and dried blood caked to his clothes. Perhaps that noise isn't my trailer hitch back there shifting around but is instead the clank of an axe head jostled by a pot hole.
These thoughts don't generally come when I'm getting into the car and can actually perform a visual check. Nooooo, I wait until I'm ripping down Maple Street to start conjuring up my possible bloody companion. Obviously, this means I regularly start my day bravely riding the wave of a panic attack. This may not be for the reasons you think, however. You see, I'm not worried that the cannibalistic psychopath hitching a ride with me is going to rise up and bludgeon me into a pulp before turning me into a skin bathrobe for his mommy. My theory is that the killing part would have happened back in my driveway. Unless this guy is suicidal along with homicidal, he would be foolish to slit my throat from the backseat as I drive.
Nope, what scares me is that this freakshow might have heard me tunelessly bellowing along to the radio. (shudder) I would die if that happened.
