You win, car in front of me in traffic sporting the decal with the precocious little boy urinating on a rival logo. You win.

I can’t compete with you. In fact, I have given up. If not for this immense traffic jam caused by an accident or an overturned watermelon truck or just “volume,” you would have blown past me, and I wouldn’t know what the boy was peeing on. Jeff Gordon? Chevrolet? The Lilliputians? Ann Curry?

But today you are stuck in this logjam with the rest of us. You have changed lanes 14 times in the last 1.8 miles to no avail. You have blasted your horn and held your hands out in open disbelief that the seas have not parted. You have revved your engine, signifying that you mean business. Still you go nowhere, and the little boy tells me you are not a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And what about you, car with 4 hats in the rear window? You apparently know somebody who went to Vanderbilt, somebody who went to Temple University, somebody who IS a fan of the Steelers, and nobody who went to South Carolina but got the hat anyway because it says “COCKS.” Clever! I only have dead bees in my rear window.

Hey, wait a minute wise guy, where do you think you’re going? You who drives on the berm all the way up the length of the back-up only to force yourself in when you finally run out of room? In my world you would be banished directly to the scrapheap, and your driver de-licensed for this offense. At least you are finally getting some offroading done, you gallons-to-the-mile monstrosity with tires the size of small Ferris Wheels. The charade works better, though, if your driver loses the tweed jacket and un-mousseifies his hair.

I’m staring at you, now, car with indecipherable vanity plate, because you provide the best challenge yet. I’m so mystified by your deliberate vagueness that a car on its cell phone has swooped in to take over the spot once occupied by me. I shall tailgate him the remainder of this impasse. Nobody does the swoop thing on me.

But the license plate. It contains no #8, so none of the words have the sound “ate” in them. It does not consist of 6 letters in two groups of three with identical third letters in each group, so we know it’s not the initials of a couple celebrating their 92nd wedding anniversary. And there is no CPA, RN, or DOC, so you are thankfully not advertising your career choice.

Wait. It’s EYJABJALLAJOKULL., the Icelandic volcano that forced all the newspeople to refer to it as simply “The Icelandic Volcano.” Now we can move on.

Here comes car that has been to the Outer Banks. And another. And another. Either that or they just invested heavily in a company called ObCross, Inc.

Oh, this is unfortunate. It appears, of all times, that car with horn stuck in on position driven by mortified mother of three boys is beside us. The boys, near as I can tell, have never experienced anything this funny in their lives. The mother is making a point to explain, through silent words and exaggerated hand gestures, to each surrounding car individually, that this is not her fault. Some of the other cars empathize. Others cringe. Others turn up the radio and shake their heads.

It looks like we’re finally moving. Car with peeing boy has changed lanes again to take advantage of the movement. I am tailgating car on cell phone, though I forget why. Big car on berm has created its own exit through the marshy grass. May he get stuck.

The only thing left to see, and we are all owed it, is a small glimpse of what caused this in the first place. Is there wreckage, spillage, or HAZMATage (Hahz-ma-taj)? Sure, we could have tuned in to AM9000– all traffic all the time– for an update, but honestly, who does that?

Nothing. No askew cars, no formaldehyde coating the right three lanes, no crushed watermelon. We are disappointed and slightly angered that we have waited an extra 23 minutes for “no good reason.”

We can’t even say we’ve made new friends, because we’re the driving public. We are, after all, the species that invented Road Rage. It’s all cars for themselves out there. Keep your eyes on all of them, and learn a little about your competition.