Report: (some explicit language)

Denver man again survives holiday trek home on I-70 stretch of western Kansas without clawing out his own eyes for amusement.

“Praise the living Christ--!” he was heard to mutter through gritted teeth and clenched jaw as he turned off the 250A exit of the eastbound lane toward I-135 southbound.

When asked how he so specifically remembered the precise exit number, his face darkened and he assumed an agitated posture.

“Yeah, pretty sure,” he sneered in a sarcastic tone. “[What] the fuck else was I supposed to pay attention to...?”

Having endured the same drive several times now, the motorist noted that each time the soul-numbing experience evoked a response of self-harm to cope with the sensations of futility, oblivion, and lost dreams typically associated with western Kansas.  Though the man reports no history of any such self-harming ideations while not on I-70, in western KS, he says the “‘I-70 mindfuck’ is always the same.”

“This time I came very close to digging into my eye sockets.  Last time I pondered taking a go at my radial artery just to see if it’s true what they say about unoxygenated blood.”

The motorist noted that the normal mental and emotional decompensation follows a similar pattern with each drive.

“I leave Denver pretty upbeat and excited to see loved ones for the holidays.  But by the time I leave Limon (eastern CO, and indistinct from western KS), it starts with ruminating on that one thing I did wrong at work the day before.  By the time I pass Hays (KS), I’m screaming at my dog that died when I was eight for running away.”  The man even confessed to going so far as condemning his friends and family, though they’ve done nothing but remain in the native region from which he himself chose to relocate five years ago.

“Is hell measurable in actual miles?” the man further mused, reliving the anguish. “Two hundred and fifty would be my guess.”

While the man’s relief was somewhat dashed, as in past trips, by the realization that there was still nearly two hours yet to drive in Kansas from Salina to Wichita, the sudden appearance of hills, bare trees, slight variations in color across the prairies, and even shoulder trenches with some weeds, on the sides of I-135 seemed to cheer him immediately.

“Is that a tumbleweed???” he asked excitedly.