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I wouldn't consider myself a workaholic, but I am psychotically opposed to being late for work. It isn't the unprofessionalism of it that bothers me as much as any time I miss is money I am not getting paid. Even five minutes makes me insane. It is gratifying that this attitude is so widely recognized by my co-workers that if I'm not in the store at least fifteen minutes early, people start to worry about me. Tery, on the other hand, doesn't share this viewpoint, not by a long shot. We even have a running joke after countless mornings spent sitting in stoic silence in darkened parking lots for twenty minutes at a time because I drove like a demon unnecessarily, and sheepishly muttering, "We're a little bit early, honey" as she glares at me from the passenger seat.
For this reason it is amazing I survived our trip to work Saturday night. It was a store situated more or less in downtown Denver that I dislike going to only because the traffic is so hard to gauge on a Saturday evening. We left at 4:20 for a 5 pm start, Tery insisting she needed to stop for a soda first. As I pulled into the convenience store across the street I could see out onto the main road where traffic was at a dead standstill. I panicked momentarily and she irritatedly told me to forget stopping, but I did anyway, because without caffeine Tery can be just about as unbearable as me. After buying the Coke we approached thethree lane parking lot main street and had a bit of luck in the form of one thoughtful motorist who let me in front of them immediately. As it turned out, this was the only luck we would have for the next practically two hours. <-----note skillful foreshadowing
Nosiree, the traffic really wasn't moving, it wasn't just a trick of the light. We couldn't see how far ahead the problem lay, so clung to a faint hope we could at least get to the highway on-ramp, a mere mile or so away. The stressful lack of motion was not helped by the presence of kids in the road, weaving in and out of the trapped cars apparently distributing flyers for one of the local businesses in the plaza we just left, so even when you got a small window of opportunity to move a precious foot or two you had to be careful to avoid hitting one of them, or at least I knew a more levelheaded person would be careful of such things. They wisely avoided my car, I wouldn't be surprised if at that point the hostility was emanating off the roof like a heat mirage. After traveling only half a mile in 30 minutes I had resigned myself to the fact that we were indeed going to be late, no doubt about it. An uncustomary peace comes with such a revelation, and I myself am quite proud of attaining it, being a horrible control freak. I was glad I hadn't begrudged Tery her Coke at least, I would never have heard the end of it. We speculated about what the holdup could possibly be. She loosely quoted from Raising Arizona, "There'd better be a spherical object on the highway."
As we came up over the hill the stress temporarily increased tenfold when it became apparent the three lanes were becoming one (ours, explaining why for the most part we weren't moving) and then being diverted well short of the on-ramp (no spherical objects or any clue as to the cause of the jam in sight, I might add). Thus began the cutthroat car politics of who to let in front of us. I let a few in, but Tery and I were of the same mind that assholes who could see damn well that their lane was ending yet insisted on speeding on to the very last minute to get the farthest ahead in line did not deserve generosity. As we neared the front and these wankers became more directly our responsibility, Tery uncharacteristically spurred me into tailgating dangerously to shut them out, which I was only too happy to do. It also pleased me uncharacteristically to see the guy behind me clinging to my back seat to do the same.
Thus diverted onto another side street, I panicked as I struggled to think of an alternate route, customarily taking the highway to get to this store every time. Fortunately I had a large amount of time to do this, as this road was only moving the tiniest bit faster than the last. I was reminded of Office Space when I noticed a young woman walking on the sidewalk chatting on a cellphone and easily keeping time with us, often getting well ahead of us. We measured our progress based on hers until she reached her apartment complex and left us in the dust. Bitch. Naturally almost everyone was planning to make the same left turn I was, and naturally the left turn arrow mercilessly only let about four cars through at a time. It was about this time I noticed that I had to pee very, very badly. I complained to Tery who sat there smugly sipping her Coke. "You've got guts, girl," I said, "There's no telling when we'll see a bathroom again....let me know when you're done with that can."
At about 5:15 we finally made the left turn and started moving again, which raised my spirits somewhat. We made good time to a gas station where I thankfully solved one of my problems, raising my spirits even more. We weren't out of the woods yet, though. I knew the store was on 11th, but not the cross street, only that it was still quite a ways to go. Denver is laid out more or less in a grid, though not as concise a grid as, say, Manhattan. I knew from my first attempt to get to the store from this direction that 11th, or for that matter most of the streets, do(es) not go straight across as one would hope. Sure enough, what ensued became a comical string of errors as every road I tried to take across the city would abruptly end, necessitating a detour north or south, then over a few more blocks west, rinse, repeat. This continued so consistently and often that when I made another venture west and we immediately saw the road ended in a big old "Road Closed" barricade ahead, I burst into psychotic, uncontrollable laughter, the kind of desperate laughter you see in movies when you think it just isn't possible for anything else to go wrong, and then something else does. I took on an Alabama drill sergeant accent and explained to my troop, Tery, we were approaching the store "serpentine."
So it was that at 6:15 we finally triumphantly pulled into the store parking lot. Well, the triumph was diminished somewhat by a chick waiting to pull out of the parking lot. Since she was going left she was taking up almost the entire entrance. As I gingerly turned into the small lane she had left me, to my surprise I looked at her in time to see her giving me a spiteful, enraged middle finger. I am still trying to figure out exactly how I deserved to be flipped off in this situation. Even more surprisingly, she wasn't even driving an SUV, where I am used to encountering such an "how dare you drive where I need to be!" attitude. I would have kicked her ass if I weren't so grateful to just not be driving anymore. We were met with some concern by our co-workers, then gratitude that we had finally made it.
Tery couldn't wait to get home and find out what we had sort of been a part of. Apparently it was a gratifyingly large accident (to merit such a huge inconvenience, I mean). Someone had lost control of their vehicle on one side of the road, taking out a couple of cars, one of which flipped over the median and took out some more cars in the oncoming lanes. Two people were hospitalized in serious condition.
It is days like this that make me soooooooo grateful to have a work-at-home job most of the time.
-=Lainey=-
For this reason it is amazing I survived our trip to work Saturday night. It was a store situated more or less in downtown Denver that I dislike going to only because the traffic is so hard to gauge on a Saturday evening. We left at 4:20 for a 5 pm start, Tery insisting she needed to stop for a soda first. As I pulled into the convenience store across the street I could see out onto the main road where traffic was at a dead standstill. I panicked momentarily and she irritatedly told me to forget stopping, but I did anyway, because without caffeine Tery can be just about as unbearable as me. After buying the Coke we approached the
Nosiree, the traffic really wasn't moving, it wasn't just a trick of the light. We couldn't see how far ahead the problem lay, so clung to a faint hope we could at least get to the highway on-ramp, a mere mile or so away. The stressful lack of motion was not helped by the presence of kids in the road, weaving in and out of the trapped cars apparently distributing flyers for one of the local businesses in the plaza we just left, so even when you got a small window of opportunity to move a precious foot or two you had to be careful to avoid hitting one of them, or at least I knew a more levelheaded person would be careful of such things. They wisely avoided my car, I wouldn't be surprised if at that point the hostility was emanating off the roof like a heat mirage. After traveling only half a mile in 30 minutes I had resigned myself to the fact that we were indeed going to be late, no doubt about it. An uncustomary peace comes with such a revelation, and I myself am quite proud of attaining it, being a horrible control freak. I was glad I hadn't begrudged Tery her Coke at least, I would never have heard the end of it. We speculated about what the holdup could possibly be. She loosely quoted from Raising Arizona, "There'd better be a spherical object on the highway."
As we came up over the hill the stress temporarily increased tenfold when it became apparent the three lanes were becoming one (ours, explaining why for the most part we weren't moving) and then being diverted well short of the on-ramp (no spherical objects or any clue as to the cause of the jam in sight, I might add). Thus began the cutthroat car politics of who to let in front of us. I let a few in, but Tery and I were of the same mind that assholes who could see damn well that their lane was ending yet insisted on speeding on to the very last minute to get the farthest ahead in line did not deserve generosity. As we neared the front and these wankers became more directly our responsibility, Tery uncharacteristically spurred me into tailgating dangerously to shut them out, which I was only too happy to do. It also pleased me uncharacteristically to see the guy behind me clinging to my back seat to do the same.
Thus diverted onto another side street, I panicked as I struggled to think of an alternate route, customarily taking the highway to get to this store every time. Fortunately I had a large amount of time to do this, as this road was only moving the tiniest bit faster than the last. I was reminded of Office Space when I noticed a young woman walking on the sidewalk chatting on a cellphone and easily keeping time with us, often getting well ahead of us. We measured our progress based on hers until she reached her apartment complex and left us in the dust. Bitch. Naturally almost everyone was planning to make the same left turn I was, and naturally the left turn arrow mercilessly only let about four cars through at a time. It was about this time I noticed that I had to pee very, very badly. I complained to Tery who sat there smugly sipping her Coke. "You've got guts, girl," I said, "There's no telling when we'll see a bathroom again....let me know when you're done with that can."
At about 5:15 we finally made the left turn and started moving again, which raised my spirits somewhat. We made good time to a gas station where I thankfully solved one of my problems, raising my spirits even more. We weren't out of the woods yet, though. I knew the store was on 11th, but not the cross street, only that it was still quite a ways to go. Denver is laid out more or less in a grid, though not as concise a grid as, say, Manhattan. I knew from my first attempt to get to the store from this direction that 11th, or for that matter most of the streets, do(es) not go straight across as one would hope. Sure enough, what ensued became a comical string of errors as every road I tried to take across the city would abruptly end, necessitating a detour north or south, then over a few more blocks west, rinse, repeat. This continued so consistently and often that when I made another venture west and we immediately saw the road ended in a big old "Road Closed" barricade ahead, I burst into psychotic, uncontrollable laughter, the kind of desperate laughter you see in movies when you think it just isn't possible for anything else to go wrong, and then something else does. I took on an Alabama drill sergeant accent and explained to my troop, Tery, we were approaching the store "serpentine."
So it was that at 6:15 we finally triumphantly pulled into the store parking lot. Well, the triumph was diminished somewhat by a chick waiting to pull out of the parking lot. Since she was going left she was taking up almost the entire entrance. As I gingerly turned into the small lane she had left me, to my surprise I looked at her in time to see her giving me a spiteful, enraged middle finger. I am still trying to figure out exactly how I deserved to be flipped off in this situation. Even more surprisingly, she wasn't even driving an SUV, where I am used to encountering such an "how dare you drive where I need to be!" attitude. I would have kicked her ass if I weren't so grateful to just not be driving anymore. We were met with some concern by our co-workers, then gratitude that we had finally made it.
Tery couldn't wait to get home and find out what we had sort of been a part of. Apparently it was a gratifyingly large accident (to merit such a huge inconvenience, I mean). Someone had lost control of their vehicle on one side of the road, taking out a couple of cars, one of which flipped over the median and took out some more cars in the oncoming lanes. Two people were hospitalized in serious condition.
It is days like this that make me soooooooo grateful to have a work-at-home job most of the time.
-=Lainey=-
, an 18-month-old male who was described as "sweet and gets along well with other ferrets." If by "gets along well" they mean "likes to use them as chew toys," then I guess we can't argue. Poor Griffyn can only get her requisite 18 hours of sleep now by being locked in the cage away from him, but we are working on it. As you can see, like all ferrets he has a propensity to get in trouble....he ended up here at the bottom of the hamper in the first 45 minutes of arriving in his new house. He also has some kind of obsession with the bathtub and will go hang out on the bathroom floor when he needs to get away from it all. He's a weird little guy, but we hope he works out.