Before us, the traffic light is red, so this morning I slow down with the cluster of cars ahead of me and stop on the hill at Lead and Second, a little away from the intersection, after going over the bridge over the rail yard tracks. A sedan pulls up beside me with muted gray metallic paint. I mindlessly peer over at the rim of the right front wheel, and beneath a thick spoke I can read some well-placed branding words clearly: Mercedes Benz. It is a newer mid-size model. My eyes lift to view the car’s driver, and the man within it is big, almost too large to sit comfortably in the driver’s seat behind the steering wheel. He has thick and wavy brown-and-gray hair. He wears some Ray-Ban-like sunglasses. He is looking at a smart phone in his meaty right hand. He wears a suit, and the interior of the car looks pretty immaculate.

I look down at the console beside my drivers seat. It is speckled with dust and gum residue and something oily and in one of the two cup holders is a lidded paper cup of home brewed coffee. Some of the coffee has been spit on the console as well, a consequence of erratic driving or sudden breaking, a dollop of whitish brown on the dirty divider in the cab. My tachometer and odometer are hardly readable because the clear plasto-glass over them has not been dusted off in I-don’t-know-how-long. The top of the dash is dusty. Multiple long cracks section off my windshield into counties. Everything in the cab is dusty. The gray driver’s seat in my 15 year-old truck is discolored by dirt and food stains. I am a mess.

I think about my problems.

A cat that suddenly won’t crap in good clean litter boxes for some reason.

No AC in the house.

The recent appearance of giant carpenter ants in the kitchen and living room.

The expiration date on the house roof has passed.

My weird array of physical symptoms.

I am educated. I have three degrees, two advanced degrees. I am not a completely horrible person- I am selfish and reclusive quite often, but I don’t try to hurt people. I am somewhat competent at getting by in life. I am responsible most of the time. I pay my bills on time (when I don’t make a mental mistake and overlook something). I am generous when I see a need and I can be. Love requires sacrifice, after all. I don’t leave my trash barrel on the street for days- or even hours- after the trash trucks have rolled through each Tuesday and picked refuse up.

But still, I am just me, and I wonder how families- people with mates and kids- do it, take care of all of this stuff that has to be taken care of to make life work. Afford to pay for those big ticket items that inevitably come up with owning a house. Pay for vet bills to keep the critters happy and healthy. Pay for anything medical, since a visit to the doctor’s office today quickly spins into a flush of a savings account. Particularly if the family lives from one income. And its not a very big one.

You can get papers and certificates with your name on them, written in fancy letters with gold leaf stamps on them- papers meant to be hung n a wall that attest to you having read a lot of letters and words and viewing charts and figures and you yourself having written a bunch of letters and words and sentences and charts and figures yourself, but that doesn’t help you much when you can’t figure out why the ice maker in the fridge keeps freezing up, or when your truck feels like it is slipping when you shift up or down into second-gear. For those moments, you have to have life sense, or good friends who can help you deal with life problems. Or a lot of time and money or enthusiasm to spend hours solving problems you have no insights into.

I may be okay at solving paper problems, but life problems- I wish I could find a good continuing education class for that.

I look again quickly at the nicely-dressed middle-aged man in the Mercedes by me, and I wonder for a moment about his life. How did he get such a clean car? What does he do that he drives around in a nice suit? How many credential papers does he have? Why does he think he can pull off a Tom Cruise coolness wearing those Risky Business shades? What is he looking at on his phone- a note from one of his kids? Business or real estate reports? The tunes on his current audio playlist? A text from his mistress? I bet he as a manicured lawn at home and multiple streams of passive income. He is loud at parties. He knows how to make things work out for his interests. I wonder if he reads much of anything.

My brains rumbles and thunders in a gray cloud when I catch myself thinking these things. He is living his life. He has his own issues. I don’t know what they are. I hope he has kids. I hope they are healthy, and one wants to be a marine biologist, and another a physical therapist. I hope he is married and has a great wife he dotes on and texts every hour. I hope his cats don’t crap on the carpet every day, five feet away from the litter box.

The traffic light changes from red to green. I turn right and head for my parking garage by work. He drives on straight, headed somewhere pleasant, I hope.

And a good day to you, sir.