Traffic jam

While the good housewives are in the midst of making various preserves, and I’m not (neither making preserves, nor a good housewife, and at times I’m even wondering if I make a good wife. At least, as to being a house, I’m not even wondering – I’m sure I’m not), and if you forgot the beginning of this sentence, because of this lengthy nonsense interruption, I can repeat it, no problem. It went like this: “while the good housewives are in the midst of making various preserves”, and I’m not making any, it’s time at least for a little something on the topic of end-of-summer preparations.

It’s such a pity that “jam” in “traffic jam” has nothing to do with fruit preserve, but rather with the verb “to jam”, meaning “block, prevent from moving”. Such a great pity! If it was, the phenomenon wouldn’t be such a terrible nuisance. First of all, most people like jams. A traffic one would therefore immediately bring good connotations to all those who are stuck.
Secondly, I’m sure there would come much more variety to the phenomenon: a traffic jelly, a traffic marmalade, maybe even a traffic spread or traffic paste (for those who prefer salty to sweet).

Imagine a Monday morning conversation of the style:

- I’ve been in a terrible traffic jam this morning.
- Was it a jelly or rather marmalade?
- Well, it started as a marmalade and then proceeded to jelly, believe me, I was completely jellified in-between two trucks and couldn’t move to any side for at least twenty minutes.
- Gosh, twenty minutes! Then it was a real paste!
- Yes, but then suddenly it smoothened out, the cars started moving again, and in the end, it was a full-blown spread, and that’s when I hit the van in front of me, whose driver must have fallen asleep during the jelly period.
- What happens next?
- Next, I go out, and yell …

And it would go on and on, if only “jam” were more like “strawberry jam” and not “jamming the entrance”. Instead of a dry notification given by your clever navigation system “traffic jam causing a delay of 45 minutes ahead of you. Calculate an alternative route?” you’d be informed about marmalades and jellies, and you would probably develop sudden appetite for any of those (this is how appetite works if you’re really hungry, and you certainly are, having waited for hours in a slow-moving jam, jelly or marmalade), which might in turn considerably increase the usage of jams and the like. Which, as a result, would be very beneficial for jam-makers. The sales would soar, the economies would recover, as there’s few things available in such abundance (and so amazingly renewable) as traffic jams in modern cities. Soon everyone would be exhilarated rather than annoyed by the obstructions in traffic.

Such a chance wasted! What’s in a name! A traffic marmalade by any other name wouldn’t taste as sweet…

The regrettable fact that “jam” in “traffic jam” doesn’t come from the right word won’t stop me from proposing “Traffic” as a brand name of a new line of jams. Just imagine:

“Traffic. Your favourite jam”.

How many jars of preserve could I have made in the time that it took me to write this entry? Numerous. Now it's official – I’m not a good housewife. I might be a good lunatic though. It’s good to be good in something.