Traffic dam
I just experienced my own personal Hell this morning.
What happened, you ask? Oh. Traffic – traffic happened.
I had stupidly scheduled a doctor’s appointment for 7:30 a.m., half chiding myself for the ungodly hour, but half clapping myself on the back because I would be done with it before I had to be at work.
The hospital is 10 miles away. Located right off a major freeway. After consulting with Jason, and thinking of all the times we’ve driven this route in the past, even allowing for early morning commuters, we concurred that 30 minutes was reasonable. (That’s a little foreshadowing there, folks.)
Shortly after getting on the freeway, it became apparent that things were going to Suck. Instantly, my speed dropped to 12 mph. I experienced an Office Space moment, where the lane next to me hurtled 14 cars in succession past me, while my lane just sat there like a giant, unblinking, retarded lizard. At this point, I hadn’t even reached the section that normally gets backed up and I had 20 minutes left to get to the hospital.
Figuring there must’ve been an accident, I appeased my anger by telling myself a traffic jam of this magnitude meant I would see limbs on the road and cars exploding and people running across the lanes with their hair aflame.
When I arrived at the “accident,” (average speed: 7 mph), I saw two cars on the side of the road. One had a slightly buckled rear bumper. That was it. Nobody injured, nobody who had to be extinguished with a blanket.
Time 7:20. Eight miles to go.
No progress made for many, many minutes. Unless you’re talking about swear word production, in which case the result was vastly different.
Time 7:50. Three miles to go.
I finally got through to a nurse at the clinic and asked what I should do. Immediately she said, “Oh, you’ll have to reschedule,” and then after hearing the disappointment in my voice, offered an insincere, “Sorry.”
I ended up getting off one mile before the hospital exit and turned onto a suburban street to head back to work. Previously, I had noticed that traffic in the other direction was flowing pretty well. Only now, it wasn’t. It was just as backed up as the other side.
And that’s when I just started bawling. Big sobs that scared me with their volume and tear production. I called Jason and my conversation went like this:
“I (sob) had to reschedule my appointment (sob) and it took me almost an hour (sob) and I was only one mile from my exit (sob) and the nurse said I had to reschedule (hiccup) and now I have to wait another two weeks to find out if there’s anything wrong with me (sniffle) and there probably WILL be (big sob) and the doctor will say they could’ve treated it if they only found it two weeks earlier (cry) and traffic was going good the other direction but now it’s just as backed up (SOB) as the other side, and it’s going to take me almost TWO HOURS (sniffle) just to get to WORK, which is only 15 minutes from our house (sob).”
God bless Jason. The man knows just what to say. And he can decipher my shrieking cry-speak.
Side note: when rescheduling my appointment, the way-too-chipper nurse said, “We have an 8:00 a.m. appointment this Friday,” and I said, “Look, there is no way that I will ever, ever, EVER make this drive in the morning again EVER because I don’t feel like allowing AN HOUR AND A HALF TO GET THERE.”
