I got stuck this afternoon in the Traffic Jam From Hell. Matter of fact, it's hard for me to grasp the fact that I'm not still in it.
Driving time between my house and my mother's usually averages fifteen minutes. I've made it in ten in emergencies. It takes twenty in rush hour. Today, it took an hour and forty minutes to go from there to here, most of it spent on a small stretch of boulevard from which one could not turn off or turn back or escape.
I thought for a time it was Obama's doing…even considered turning Republican in protest. This was not far from the hotel where he's staying and the passenger in the car next to me yelled, "It's the presidential motorcade! Avenue of the Stars is blocked off for it!" But when we finally got to Avenue of the Stars, it was not blocked off and we could see that the delay was due to massive road construction, narrowing an eight-lane street to one in each direction, necessitating impossible mergings. Cars apparently kept bumping one another and logjamming and…Well, at one point, things were so totally not moving that I just picked up my BlackBerry and began answering e-mail and Twittering. Folks in other vehicles around me literally got out of their cars and stood around talking.
After about twenty minutes in one spot, I felt like I needed a parking validation. I also felt myself getting hungry. Fortunately, I'd stopped at a market just before…so I finally put the car in Park, got out, dug into my back seat and assembled a chicken sandwich out of my purchases. I also had a bag of Baked Ruffles potato chips and a bottle of water…so that part wasn't bad. I could have made some serious money selling snacks to people in nearby autos.
Finally, after six eternities and an eon, the processional got moving. I did about one mile an hour for twenty minutes and then, like magic, the Heavens opened. We were past the road construction with the two lanes suddenly bursting back into eight. I heard the guy in the car ahead of me yell, "Yahooooo!"
Anyway, that's why there hasn't been more posted here today. And why I may never go visit my mother ever again.