It's True

So all my life I've heard of stories and that of a friend of a friends, but never in my OWN life have I ever experienced any sort of traffic drama outside of two hours. Maybe that one time in Steamboat, but we were on vacation and had no place to be so time was not an issue, it could have been only one hour, it could have been five. At any rate, in Colorado whenever traffic is bad, you can always jump off on an exit and chance the side streets and eventually get home. Not here dude. Here you have nothing but tunnels and water. No where to go.

Last night the weather called for "thundersnow". I've never heard of thundersnow before so that scared me enough to seek refuge for the night at HG's house, which is 4 blocks from DHQ (my office). Dane was in Olympia so there was no reason to go home anyway unless I wanted to deal with the monsters, which I didn't. So I stayed at HG's house only to wake up this am to no snow. :-[ Grrr. At any rate, I went to work at the GAWD AWFUL VILE hour of 8:00am with HG this am and was definitely ready to leave by 4. I begrudgingly went to the gym w/ HG, but only for 20 min (so there!). I was in my car and heading home by 4:25pm just as the first snowflakes were falling from the sky. They did not appear to be thundersnowflakes. It took untill 5:15 to get to the highway, odd, but sometimes traffic is effed up but clears by I-5. NOT the case today. In fact it got worse and worse. It remined me of last week when there was an accident in the separate express lanes that closed them down diverting traffic to the mainline. Well sure enough by 6:05 and not even having gone .5 of a mile I figured something was messed up. To make a stressful story long, it took me 4 hours, no joke, to get home. 4 long hours. Never in the history of my little communting life has it EVER taken me that long to get home. I feel very lucky to have not been in an emergency or had to pee or something cause that would have been excruciating. I would have had to pee my pants/car. How embarrassing and sad is that? The snow was bad on the Eastside, cars everywhere, it was so slick. I was so hungry by the time I got home and angry and sad and my head hurt like hell. But that's more from hating my job and La Douche (the new boss lady) than traffic.

And get this! I ran out of gas this week! On the highway where 2 highways merge to one! I tried to get over and couldn't (because no one would let me in) and sure enough, I ran out of gas in the middle of TWO lanes. I tried to push my car but almost slipped and died, so I got back in my car, whimpered, and then resigned to calling AAA. Just then, a *tap* on my window. A cute guy in Carharts was there and asked if I needed a tow. Yes please. So he strapped the Fxylady and took off just as the incident sherriff* pulled behind me.

* Here in Seattle we have police who's only job is to respond to traffic incidents like flat tires, stalled vehicles, etc. I think it's brilliant. I don't know who called, but within 3 minutes he was there, even though I had already received help by then. Amazing.

So once the sherriff figured out I was being towed, he fled the scene. Which sucked cause I still needed gas and I was towed to a back in parking only lot for permitted carpools. I tried calling my saviour, Dane, who was available to come rescue me. It took two separate trips to the gas station with the can and another trip with my car, by that time I only had $14 to put in the tank. Dane took it like a champ though, he was totally HOURS late to work for me for something that was completely my fault and completely within my control to prevent. I hugged him and told him as much and he just smiled and said "I know" and kissed me. I bring drama to his otherwise dull life, that's gotta be the only reason he loves me and is still with me.

So anyway my car, tonight on the 4 hour drive home, gets the low fuel light. Well, as learned earlier this week, I can go 53 miles once my low fuel light comes on. Then it hits me. I know how many moving miles I can go on E, but not how many stationary, idling minutes I can burn on E. I start to panic and cry realizing that for the second time in 2 days, I will run out of gas. And this time there's nothing I can do - it was almost a quarter tank when I left work and now it's on E and I have to sit and idle in stop and go traffic for hours. With this and everything else I just lost it. I tried to calm myself, I tried to let it go, I tried to be still my beating heart, but the stress got the best of me and my head exploded. I sobbed and sobbed and wished I could go back to the days of low stress and no traffic. I longed for a better time and cried because it feels like it will never get better and it will only get more stressful as life continues. I seriously contemplated jumping into Lake Washington but remembered that the Seahawks are in the playoffs and I might want to wait to off myself till after they lose the game. :-P

Kidding aside, traffic sucked. I had a glass of wine with my mushroom "meat" and potatoes dinner and now I'm off to bed. At the very least I will sleep in tomorrow knowing that we will have a late start if not a full snow day.

I have some wedding news, but I might save that for another post.