Commuter Blues.
November 2, 2006
Filed under:The Number Nine
The new job is great. I’ve found a place that honestly believes that my work will speak for itself, and have found a boss that doesn’t honestly believe that he has to stand behind me and smack the back of my head for every misstep (like Mrs. Miller in 8th grade).
I’m still adjusting to the commute though, as it’s in City West and even though that isn’t more than 2 K away from my old job with the pretzled streets and highways in this city it may as well be 20 K. Seriously, there are more one-ways and you-can’t-get-there-from-heres around here than in those small French towns where they only do it to drive American tourists to fits of rage. It’s insane.
Traffic, as well, has been giving me the shits lately with the emerging realisation that a trip that normally SHOULD take me about 25 minutes is now triple that estimate. I’m not liking that part at all. On the plus side, I’m pretty sure that I’m now suitably prepped for a career as an afternoon radio personality. I mean, Holy Crap, am I funny. I get to cracking myself up so hard that other drivers stare bemusedly through the hordes of unmoving metal, just as I would were I not cackling so much.
Traffic is quite the shatness, true, but the hardest part of getting to work in the morning is cutting short the time I spend with my boy when I drop him off at school. Previously, we were able to get settled in and read a book or do a puzzle before I left. Though I was still a bit late to work, I was the only one there, so no one really cared. Now, I barely have time to hear the bell sound and get him in the door before I have to rush off, and STILL be late, only now I’ve got an office of co-workers and a boss who all care. They don’t mind terribly, and are very forgiving and flexible around my schedule, but it still puts my day off.
Especially today. I had a plan this morning. I wasn’t even going to wait around to take my son into the school, I stuck him with a few of his friends near a tree begging to be climbed and took off, zooming through traffic like Schumacher towards the Train Station several blocks away.
I’ve reset all my time-keeping devices (phone, microwave, etc) a few minutes ahead, just so I can make sure that I’ll be on time for this goddam train. As I’m walking towards it from my parking spot just near the Outer Sudan, I glance at my mobile and see that I have roughly 2 minutes. Normally I wouldn’t panic and run, but it was a nice morning and not too hot, so I broke into a jog, arriving at the station and jamming my gold coins into the ticket machine just in time to hear the WHISS – CLICK of my train’s brakes releasing.
Clutching my freshly printed ticket and pressing my face up against the plate glass, I watched as my best chance in two weeks of catching that freaking train chug-chugged away. I peeled myself off the window, looked at my $3.20 worth of paper scrap, wiped the drool off my mouth, and carefully considered kicking something… hard. But alas, there are cops about in the station and I never got anything out of kicking stuff other than pain.
So, I decided to laugh a bit. It really IS quite comical. I’ve turned into THAT guy, once again.
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