Last night, the on-chain congestion was like rush hour subway again.

My swap transaction was sent out like I took a number and queued in the mempool: first pushed back by a bunch of transactions with higher "priority fee," waiting forever without guaranteed confirmation;
the price was still fluctuating midway, and when it was bundled, it could hit slippage limits or even fail, but the gas fee was paid upfront as a tuition fee.
Honestly, you think you're confirming a point, but you're actually competing with invisible arbitrageurs and couriers for a channel.

Recently, AI Agents and automated trading have been quite popular.
Some people hype them up as fully automatic money-making machines, but when congestion hits, they still have to queue.
They just better at adjusting prices, canceling orders, or resubmitting; slow hands can only watch their transactions "fail" in the pool.
I've now gotten used to it: during congestion, I prefer to do less, or think through exit strategies first, so I don't get more frustrated as I wait in line.