(I realized as I was writing that I really needed a map to fully explain how frustrating this was. G=home, B=preschool, C=university, D=college, E=Target)
Yesterday my husband was feeling pretty ill (he's on medicine for bronchitis) and it was cold enough we decided to take him to school, and since our oldest had preschool near the university, I didn't think it would be much of a problem. He checked the oil and started warming up the car, but we had to scrape windows and get the boys buckled in. So even though we were out of the house by 9:12, we didn't get on our way until closer to 9:20. Which shouldn't have been a problem. The longest it has ever taken to get to this preschool home (not including rush hour) is 10 minutes. But it was.
One lane was closed for construction. Normally this shouldn't be a problem. You could see that the right lane was closed when you crested the hill before the lane closed--quite a bit before the lane closed. But instead of doing what the majority of cars were doing, merging into the left lane, there were a few cars who changed into the right lane to speed past everyone else. This frustrates me. I always want to ask the person who sped by 20 cars to try and pull in front of me why I should let them in, and I always want to just drive in the middle of the two lanes so that no one can pass me. (My mom told us a story of a semi-trailer doing that exact thing during construction in Utah.) After the fifteenth car passed us on the right and we were still not moving, I told my husband, and he decided that he was going to drive in the middle. Another car a few cars behind us decided to do the same thing. Two things happened: we finally started moving, and cars stopped speeding up the right lane.
So we got to preschool a few minutes late. Then we drove to the university so that my husband could pick up the work he needed to take with him to the college he also teaches at. But the library elevator wasn't working and he had to walk the eight flights to his cubical to pick up his stuff and walk eight flights back down. Then we drove to the college. And we followed the signs to his college, rather than following the way that we normally go. And there was a train on the track, not speeding down the track, slowly crawling along the track, and crawling so slowly it stopped for a few minutes.
By the time we got him there (Time 10:45), there wasn't really a point in going home, especially since I knew about the traffic situation. I would be able to pull the youngest out of the car seat for 15 minutes and then need to be back in the car. So I decided to drive to Target and pick up some socks. I was going in the right direction to miss the heavy traffic in front of the VA hospital, but we did go down to one lane for a fire engine. At Target, I let the youngest walk around as I found the socks for his brother. Then we got back in the car to drive to preschool. (Time 11:20)
But once again there was traffic. I didn't find out until I had made it to the end, but construction had closed one lane, so the two lane highway had to share the construction portion, but hey had closed it so close to a traffic light that anytime more than three cars were waiting to go north, they would stop the south direction and let the north cars go. Which meant that 15 cars would go north, then 3 would go south, then 8 would go north, then 3 would go south, then 20 would go north, then 3 would go south. (Get the idea.) I finally made it to preschool at 11:46 and picked up my boy. Then drove home to feed the starving one-year-old.
All in all, it reaffirmed my desire to commute as little as possible.
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