Rush Hour - Small Town Style

Well, yesterday I had to go to Cleveland again for another seminar. I honestly don't know how in the world people can stand to drive through that traffic every day. Or, sit through it, I guess I should say. It's maddening!

However, I do have to admit, the small towns aren't always better. First of all, one thing that small towns are great at is closing down multiple roads at once so that you have to drive 377 miles to get across a town that is only 5 miles wide. I know the big cities have a lot of construction, but they've usually got 2 or 3 lanes to work with so you can still pretty much keep going your normal route. Around here, it's a one lane road that suddenly has a giant hole in it. I've found that can be a real problem. And the two areas that are the best at closing every convenient route conceivable all at once are the town I live in and the town I work in. Oh, it just works out wonderfully, I tell you.

So anyway, right now there's a bridge closed on my normal way to work, which I forget every morning until I've gone about too far in that direction and have to make a wild u-turn to cut back across town. I drive about 15 feet when I see the car caterpillar ahead of me. For those of you that don't know, that's a line of cars that are just creeping along. Most generally car caterpillars are led by one of two creatures...the school bus or the farm machinery. Today it was the school bus.

So I join the caterpillar body and we drive about 3 feet at 2 miles an hour then stop....little kid comes moping out of the house, in no apparent hurry to make it to school anytime this week. Finally the little angel gets in and finds a seat, and off we go. 3 more feet. 2 miles an hour. Sit and wait. Mmm, Mom's gotta hug and kiss and double-check this one's backpack before they get their precious little hide on the bus. Finally...we're off. Another 3 feet. GOOD GRIEF - Can't all these kids get together in one place and wait for the bus? That's what we had to do!! Our driver made one stop on the road, and by gum, you better be there or he'd leave you! Even if you chased him down the road yelling for him to stop while all the other bratty kids laughed at you! (Yes, that happened to me once and I still hold deep scars from it, as you can see.) Somebody needs to toughen these little dudes up! Finally we make a little more progress...then we start all over again. Really, do kids need an education that bad? Just let the little tikes sleep...at least until I get out of town!

OK - I've cleared the town and now am heading out 96. Speed Limit - 55. Sure would be nice if somebody told that to the guy in front of me. 40 miles an hour. PAH-LEEESE MISTER! You're Killing Me Here! Now this road is fairly winding, so there's not many opportunities to pass. Of course, in the couple that there are, he decides to speed up to 65. OK...Now I see your little game.

So just as I'm ready to blow past him, he flips on his turn signal (at the last minute, of course) and whips off to a side street. It's a wonder I didn't hit him. But at least I'm free! 55 (or perhaps a tad bit faster) here I come!

Until I see the humongous farm tractor pull out in front of me. AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHH! Now this isn't just any farm equipment. It's one of those monster ones that have giant spikes sticking out of the sides that are ready to strip the paint off of your car if you even think about trying to pass it. But since I can't tolerate 40 miles an hour, you can imagine how I'm doing at 12 miles an hour, so I take a chance and pass the green monster. Thankfully I reach the other side with all car parts intact. We're makin' progress now!

So I head into the last stretch, and lo and behold, here's a construction truck hauling a trailer with a bunch of loose drywall in it. Well this is good, I'm probably going to be pelted by this junk any time now because it's flinging all over the place. So, here I go again...let's pass him. Except THIS dude decides to move to the middle of the road. Which was quite a problem because I was BESIDE him at the time, with nothing but 1/2 foot of road and a ditch beside me. And he won't move over. I don't know if he was extremely unobservant or just a jerk, but I finally figured it wasn't worth it so I backed off of him. And drove 15 miles an hour the rest of the way to work. I should have taken an extra blood pressure pill this morning.

So, like I said, I don't know how people can stand driving these little backroads all the time. Man, rush hour at a major city wouldn't be this bad!!

Yeah, the grass is always greener....

Thus The Day Starts...

Have you ever noticed how some folks are "morning people" and some are not? That's probably a stupid question, since that is one of the most general categories of being a human being. You either are, or you're not. Therefore, for the official record...I am not.

This is not something I could help necessarily. It's a genetic thing. Mom....not a morning person. Heather....not a morning person. Adam....definitely not a morning person. Dad was. Poor little guy. It would have been nice if at least one of us would have picked up on that gene.

The main reason I'm not a morning person is because I am a night owl. Just can't turn it off in the evenings. So here I am, 1:30 a.m., knowing I have to get out the door by no later than 7:30 in the morning, counting down how much time I have left to sleep. Do you do that? It's really stupid. "OK, if I fall asleep right now, I'll get 5 hours of sleep. That's OK...I can make it on 5 hours..." Then 20 minutes later it's "OK, 4 hours and...what is an hour minus 20...that would be...uhm - shoot, well OK - more than 4 hours still...that's still OK...If I wear that one shirt I won't have to take time to iron it so I can sleep a couple minutes longer....so 4 hours and...OK, I'm OK."

This process continues several different times until I finally scream at myself (sometimes literally) to SHUT UP AND GO TO SLEEP! Finally I drift away to dreamland. Then, due to the fact that 3 hours and whatever minutes was not nearly enough sleep, I wake up at 7:15, and the fun starts.

Stagger to the bathroom and poke a hot iron through my eyes. Oh wait, that's just what the contacts feel like when you've only had 3 hours and whatever minutes of sleep. Can't find the shirt that doesn't need ironed because my eyes are all bleary from where I just poked a hot iron through them. And I apparently used the only other one that I do have clean as a pillow last night because no iron is ever going to get the wrinkles out of it. But I do what I can and head back to the bathroom where the curling iron is heating up, ready to attack the hair. Only then do I realize that I forgot to turn the curling iron on, and a cold curling iron is a help to no one. It's a sad fact of life.

So I yell at it like it's at fault for not being hot, turn it on and brush my teeth while I wait. Now, you know that period of brushing your teeth when the toothpaste has just become foamy but there is still one clump of it that has not disintegrated down yet? Yeah, that's about the time it will slide right off of my teeth and hike down the front of the only clean-though-wrinkled shirt that I have like a little mountain climber.

It's a good thing I don't cuss.

By now the curling iron is as hot as I have time to allow it to get. Since my eyesight has continued to deteriorate from not only the hot poker trauma but also from looking cross-eyed down the front of my shirt while I tried to wipe the toothpaste slime off of it, I grab the brush by the wrong end and burn the tip of my finger off. This finger is nearly 2 inches shorter than all the others from the numerous times this has happened. Again I remind myself that I don't cuss, and attempt to do something to my hair. Which is futile, because the hair is actually fully in charge of what it is going to look like today, and I have no real say in the matter. (Of course, I don't ever really know what it has done until about 12:30 when my eyesight finally gets back to normal.) It's about this time that I hear my Fox and Friends morning news partners announce that the time is now 7:30, and here are today's headlines. GET OUT THE DOOR - YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR WORK!! (OK, they don't actually say that, but I know what they're implying...)

So, with my wet, wrinkled shirt and psychedelic hairdo I head for the door. ................. Where are my shoes? Seriously - how can you lose a pair of shoes?? EVERY MORNING??? Finally I find them underneath the clean shirt that didn't need ironed. Let's go!! ........................ Where are my keys?? Don't cuss, don't cuss, don't cuss.....

OK, got the keys, got the shoes...we're off. Down the stairs, into the car....drat - it frosted last night. Where's the heet in a can? Spray the windows down...of course the wind is blowing so it sprays all over the shirt which is just starting to dry with a big toothpaste slime mark on it...jump in, take off. Wait....where's my office ID tag? GOOOOOOD.....GRIEEEEF.....back upstairs, grab the tag - HERE WE GO!

The car is out of gas......

Well, it gets really ugly at this point, so we'll just leave it here.

I would like to point out though that there is one exception to this little morning dance. That would be Saturdays when I have no where to go or nothing to do. On those days I will wake dutifully at 6:00 a.m., ready to face the world. Thus the reason for writing this blog with the sun blaring in my eyes this morning.

And reminding myself that I don't cuss.

Here's to hoping y'all have a great day today!!