I attended a distant cousin’s funeral last Tuesday, one of those third-tier relatives you only see at weddings or, well, funerals. The service itself was held at a rather austere Methodist church, roughly an hour and forty-five minutes from my subdivision in Westchester, assuming no significant delays on the I-95 corridor. The eulogy, delivered by a nephew I believe, was predictably sentimental, detailing the deceased’s unwavering community spirit and penchant for baking excessively moist banana bread. I recall noting, with a certain clinical detachment, that his voice cracked precisely three times during the recounting of a specific anecdote involving a charity bake sale. My internal clock, however, was fixated on the impending evening commute. It was 3:17 PM when the nephew began describing the deceased’s final moments, a passage I found particularly cloying. My calculations were precise: if the service concluded by 3:45 PM, allowing for fifteen minutes of polite commiseration with relatives I barely recognized, I could realistically be on the road by 4:00 PM. This would place me squarely in the early wave of rush hour, yes, but crucially, I would avoid the gridlock that invariably solidifies between 4:30 PM and 6:00 PM around the New Rochelle exit. The thought of being trapped in a metal box, watching the sun dip below the suburban sprawl, while listening to a particularly aggressive true-crime podcast, held far more gravitas for me than the sorrowful pronouncements echoing through the nave. I visualized the specific lane merges I’d need to execute on the Merritt Parkway, mentally rehearsing the precise moment to signal. And there it is, isn't it? The admission. My mind, during a moment meant for solemn reflection, was instead meticulously charting a course through traffic. Not a flicker of genuine grief for a man whose name I had to ask my wife for an hour before we left. Just the cold, hard logic of time, distance, and the immutable laws of suburban congestion. I even found myself annoyed when an elderly aunt, bless her heart, cornered me for an extra seven minutes after the service, throwing off my departure schedule by a critical margin. The subsequent bumper-to-bumper experience on the Cross Bronx Expressway felt like a personal affront, a direct consequence of my failure to execute the escape plan with the required precision. What does that say about a person? I don't know. I just know my priority was making it home before the local news started.