Without question, the best route for me to take to and from work is the Greenway.
No stoplights, speed limit is 65, nowhere near the level of traffic of any of the other major roads.
The drawback, of course, is the expense. A one-way trip on the Greenway costs a painful $3.50.
That means that if I took it both ways, every day, my commute would cost me $35 a week, or $140 a month. As Scott put it, that would be like paying “commuter rent.”
So it’s not a cost-effective solution.
The problem, though, is that taking the other likely route to and from work every day would cost me what little sanity I have remaining.
I’m convinced that Route 7 was designed by a committee consisting of the hundred maniacs who fathered Freddy Krueger.
The on-ramp from 28, for example, is clearly the product of a diseased mind, what with its two lanes that merge into one right before merging onto 7.
One thing is clear, though: I just can’t take Route 7 in the morning without going insane.
So I’ve decided that my sanity is worth $17.50 a week and that I’m going to take the Greenway in to work every morning. I’m usually out of work by 4:30, so while traffic is pretty bad on the non-Greenway route home, it’s not as bad as it would be if I left later in the day, or as bad as it is in the morning.
(The non-Greenway route still costs $.50 one way, so my total commuting cost will be $19.50 a week. Bad Math Update: It would actually be an even $20. 5 * $.50 = $2.50. Who knew? Actually, my original math was correct, I was just using the wrong numbers. For some reason - Wishful thinking? - I was figuring 4 days at $.50 instead of 5.)
I spent much of today sitting on conference calls and struggling to pay attention. I lost that struggle more often than not.
I have yet to see that cute, petite girl I talked to on the elevator last week again, though I hardly suppose that it matters.
Speaking of the elevators, yesterday while I was standing by them waiting for one to open, two guys walked by talking, and I have to believe that I totally misunderstood what was being said, or that if I didn’t mishear or misinterpret the meaning, that there was some sort of context I was missing.
Just as I was getting on the elevator, one of them inclined the folder he was carrying in my direction and, it seemed to me, said, “The worst case scenario is that you end up becoming that.”
As the elevator doors closed, I thought to myself, “Wait, what? Did he just tell that guy that becoming me is the worst case scenario? WTF? I don’t even know those people.”
As I said, I have to believe that there was something I was missing or that I misunderstood.
It actually reminded me of something that happened during my freshman year in college.
For some reason which I can’t remember, the school was closed one Friday in the fall, and Lorie and I decided to take advantage of the extra day to make a trip home for the weekend.
Totally unrelated – I’m assuming – to the Friday closure, Meat Loaf was performing at my school that Saturday.
When I got home, I called up my friends to see what they were doing for the weekend. It turns out that they were planning to head to Marquette – where I’d just come from – to see Meat Loaf on Saturday.
Lacking anything better to do if my friends weren’t going to be around, I opted to buy a ticket, and come Saturday morning I was on my way back to Marquette.
(Given that after the concert I went back home, only to head back to Marquette once again come Sunday, Lorie – we weren’t yet married, or even officially engaged – upbraided me for my stupidity. Meh. I had a good time. Note that this was a couple of years before Bat out of Hell II, and also before Mr. Loaf’s rather dramatic weight loss, which preceded his dramatic weight gain, or re-gain, I suppose.)
After various time-killing activities, my friends and I stopped by my dorm room for a while. As we were leaving, there were two girls at the end of the hall talking. One was saying to the other, “There were thes really skuzzy-looking guys walking around in the halls earlier.” Then, spotting us as we headed towards the exit, she said, loudly, “Oh good; they’re leaving.”
That one I heard loud and clear and understood perfectly, and I know it wasn’t my imagination, as Eric also heard it.
In fairness, yeah, I suppose we were pretty skuzzy-looking, but even so, it was kind of uncalled for.
(Interesting aside: while walking around in the halls being skuzzy-looking, I noticed that the mirror from Lorie’s room was cracked and in a garbage can. I then encountered Lorie’s rather dazed-looking roommate who explained that in the night she had fallen while climbing out of bed and smacked her head against the mirror, giving herself a concussion, and, presumably, seven years’ worth of bad luck.)
In any case, while it’s possible that becoming me is the worst case scenario, there’s no reason for people to go around saying it, though perhaps “I’m the worst case scenario” would make yet another good T-shirt slogan.
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