Quantifiable Living: Fruitcake - Holiday traffic-related desperation Scale

Emotion: Desperation due to holiday-related traffic conditions


Unit of measure: Fruitcake


How it works: The desperation due to being stuck in holiday traffic or attempting to find a parking space (at the mall or elsewhere) may be measured in the amount of fruitcake (frc.) car occupants would be willing to consume to relieve the inevitable hunger that accompanies hours of sitting in a running-but-not-moving car.

Desperation should not be confused with rage or frustration; as such, desperation levels may not be measurable for some time, then may rise rapidly on an exponential scale.

Holiday-traffic-related desperation (HTR desperation) differs from desperation due to ordinary everyday conditions in its predictable annual appearance, its implications for whether much-loved family and friends will receive appreciative gifts this year, and its focus on the goal of getting to a location that will invariably involve waiting in more lines.

Different activities, even taking the same amount of time, are likely to induce differing levels of desperation, as the closer to the completion of the holiday-related task the holiday-related traffic occurs, the less desperate individuals tend to feel.

Example:

Waiting on shoulder of highway, 3 mi. from mall exit, 2 hours: ½ frc.

Circling mall parking lot for 47th time, 2 hours: ¼ frc.


Limits: The HTR desperation scale is limited to 0-1 fruitcakes, as consuming more than an entire fruitcake has proven lethal to humans. As such, desperation should be measured in fractions (i.e., 1/3 frc.). Individuals indicating they would rather be dead than wait in the car/store/line a moment longer may express their desperation level as 1 frc.

This scale does not measure frustration due to holiday-related traffic conditions, as no known scale is capable of handling the exponentially steep curve and volatility of this type of frustration.

Ongoing studies on logarithmic and possible four-dimension versions of a HTR frustration scale have thus far been inconclusive.