Shutdown

I hate to use this space as a place to vent/complain, but mornings such as this warrant a mini rant.  Remember how yesterday I mentioned the ridiculousness around these parts?  Well this morning was ridiculousness to the max.

Nick and I do the cheap don’t want to pay for double the gas since we live farther away now practical thing and carpool into work every morning.  He ends up at school about an hour and a half early (to get things prepared every morning), and I end up leaving school about an hour/hour and a half late (to get things prepared every afternoon).  I tutor on the side, so this little gig tends to work well for us; we’re getting work accomplished, we’re saving a couple dollars, and we get to enjoy company on the ride in/out.  I say “ride” as if we were going more than the 15 miles that it actually is, but let me tell you; today was a ride.

We leave our house promptly every morning with about a 50min-1hour cushion to get to work.  Recall that living only 15 miles away, this should take us no more than 20 minutes…  On a “good day,” I’m arriving 20 minutes early to work (by the time we’ve traveled and I’ve dropped Nick off), and happy/prepared as can be.  I haaaate being late.  My mom would argue this case (as I was born a week beyond her initial due date), but since then, I’ve tried to live by the mantra “early” is considered “on time” and “on time” is considered late. 

Well today I would have been considered a week late by that assessment.  Today, the highway shut down.  As in, cones blocking off all four lanes in two different places along the highway.  Closed for business.  Unbeknownst to us, to travel a 3 mile distance (between exits), we would have to wait AN HOUR.  One.  Whole.  Hour.  When we were finally able to reroute ourselves, school had already begun.  Fortunately this is something that we prepare for at my particular school, so waltzing in (aka frantically running through the doors in a panic on the way to class) 30 minutes after school started was understood. 

Now I must say I feel awful complaining about this; someone lost their life over the accident this morning, but it was so bad that this impacted us over an hour after the initial crash took place.  It makes me wonder what in tarnation was going on to cause the accident in the first place?!  I use the “Waze” traffic app (loooooooove love love Waze), and people were jokingly saying that perhaps the accident was caused by texting on Waze, but the truth is, Perhaps the accident WAS caused by texting.  Or not looking before changing lanes.  Or speeding at some ridiculous Ricky Bobby speed.  So times like these truly make me take a step back in an attempt to drive a little more alert and keep the roads a little safer.

So my PSA for the day: pppppppppplease don’t text/put on makeup/blare your radio ridiculously loud/speed like you are driving nascar/etc. while driving.  JUST DO NOT.  Because people’s lives (and their sanity) are at stake here.  

As a side note, I think we tried to make the highway a little more cheerful once Robin Thicke came on the radio.  You better believe in my crazy traffic-stressed state I was dancing like crazy (in the passenger’s seat, of course), and that everyone that crept by (the same people on multiple occasions) looked at me like I should be committed.