If you have ever spent any time in or near Maine you have probably heard this expression for real, not just on TV. I always thought it was either a) a metaphor for life or b) a twistedly Yankee form of making fun of tourists asking for directions. Turns out you sometimes you really cahn't get theyah from heeah.
3 am this morning and my mom (who lives with me...and the daughters, in the zoo...aren't you glad you're not me?) is shaking me awake. Oh, yeah. Gotta go to the airport, because of course I had to book her flight on the internet for her, and of course she couldn't just take the airport limo to Boston for a 7 am flight like a normal person since that would be expensive and complicated, and yeah. It didn't help that I knew the night before that I had to get up in the middle of the fricking night (hey, when I'm up at 3 am it's usually cuz I haven't been to bed yet) and so I purposefully didn't have any coffee after 3 pm--a form of torture if you must know--so that I <might> actually get more than three hours of sleep. And it seemed to work since all evening I was yawning so big I thought I could swallow myself, but when I got home from work I wasn't the least bit sleepy. So I didn't go to bed until 11:30 and didn't fall asleep until after midnight and now it's 3 am and there isn't enough coffee in all the land.
It wasn't too bad most of the way. The nice thing about driving on Route1 South at five o'clock in the morning is that there isn't very much traffic, which also happens to be the only nice thing about driving on Route1 South at 5 o'effing clock in the morning. But we're tooling along in the Jag, making good time, and I'm thinking this isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. All the way until we get to the Airport exit and the grandaddy of all traffic rotaries, because this particular one has a damn forest growing in the middle of it, so you can't really see very much in the way of what's coming. But I stop like a good little driver do-bee, look both ways twice, nothing coming, pull into the circle, and from out of nowhere a huge Bronco/SUV thing is cutting me off from the left, trying to exit right and not slowing down. Jesus Christ! Thank god for quick reflexes and excellent brakes, because he (of course it was a "he." I never saw the driver but it had to be a he for obvious reasons) had to have been going at least 50 around that circle and wasn't stopping for nuthin', literally coming within inches of hitting me. My mother is losing her mind with her foot slamming on that imaginary brake all cars have on the passenger side, swearing up a storm (see, I come by it naturally) and hanging on to the "oh shit" handle for dear life. I was pretty calm, considering, and if nothing else the huge adrenaline dump was enough to keep me awake for the rest of the drive. Except, now I have to pee. Almost getting creamed first thing in the morning will do that to you, and guess I'm just lucky that I needed to pee after, instead of the alternative...
Route 1 may not have had much in the way of traffic but the airport sure made up for it. No matter what time of the day or night it is you can guarantee that there will be a shitton of people trying to get in and out, and that the terminal drop off areas will be clogged with cars and buses and pedestrians, and absolutely none of them will be paying any attention to anything other than themselves. They should make a video game of just the airport terminals, bumper car style. How many idiots and cars can you hit before you get taken out? Anyway, I get close enough to drop mom off, help her with her bag, blah, blah, and get back in to pull out. And then sit and wait for ten minutes to actually be able to pull out. When I do, there is (of course) a big ass bus next to me. And I swear it's mocking me. Now, I have to pee, the two cups of coffee 2 hours ago have long since worn off, I'm beyond tired and so possibly hallucinating at this point, but seriously, this bus is being a pain in the ass. I speed up, it speeds up. I slow down, it slows down. And, I'm pretty sure it's in the lane I want to be in, because I can't remember if the exit I want is to the left or the right, but surely there will be a sign or some sort of warning, right? Riiiiight. I mean, why would there be, when all the rental car places and car parks and hotels are ON Route 1-A, so you would expect it to be a little more difficult to freaking miss the freaking exit...like if there's a freaking bus in the way so you can't read the signs...
The bus exits (right) at the last possible minute while I'm in a lane that keeps going, wondering if I'm really awake, and when the hell the exit I want is coming up...wait, I don't remember there being a toll just to leave the airport. Oh holy hell shitdamnpisssuck, I did NOT want to be in the Ted Williams tunnel and now I know I must be still at home sleeping because this bad dream just got a whole lot worse. It's a tunnel. Meaning that it tunnels. Meaning that there are no exits right away. Meaning that you can't just flipping bang a uey, illegal or otherwise, and turn around. Meaning that like it or not, I am now going into Boston this Friday morning. Personally, I think they did it on purpose. Far as I know that tunnel still isn't completely paid for, so what better way to force drivers through it to pay the toll than to make it next to impossible to avoid it?
I hate driving in Boston. NYC cabdrivers hate driving in Boston. Who wouldn't? The streets themselves are about three feet wide and were meant for horses, for cripe's sake, so they decided to dig the highways in. There are off ramps with no on ramps, so if you get off the turnpike you are hosed with no idea how to get to an on ramp that will have you going in the direction you want to be, and those other drivers will run you over and never look back. Directionals are the other thing the high beams can do but they never use them, lanes mean nothing so you can turn across four lanes of traffic anytime you want, speed limit signs are there for graffiti artists to have a canvas, and you had better by-god know exactly where you are going because there is absolutely no mercy for the weak. Survival of the fittest rules, everybody plays chicken with everybody else, and I even think there are bonus points if your car has a hood ornament. I have to pee, the adrenaline and coffee have long since worn off, I already feel like I'm having an out of body experience, and now I'm headed west on 90 when I wanted to be going north on Route 1A. I am so totally screwed right now...wait, there's an exit coming up for South Boston/93. Not exactly where I want to go this morning, but at least I used to know how to get home from there. But do you think I can get over to exit? Of course not. That would be too easy. I am totally boxed into the middle lane and no one is about to let me over...
So, west on 90 it is. The map in my head is trying to figure out where we're going, I'm doing a version of the potty dance in my seat, people are kamikaze on their way to wherever they need to be at 85 miles an hour...oh, lookee! There's a "turn around" to go back to Boston ahead. I have no idea what the yellow "Fast Lane Required" sign means, and frankly I don't care. It says this will turn me around, and the staties can just find my ass and mail me a ticket because I am turning around.
Yay! 90 East to 93 North to Route 1 North and finally I am on my way home and peeing will just have to wait because there is not enough money to get me to change lanes and fight with these crazy drivers anymore...except just as I get to the border the "you're gonna be walking soon" light comes on. Alrighty, pit stop it is. My bed, which I have been hearing calling to me for the last half hour (ok, ever since I climbed out of it at 3 o'effing am) will just have to wait ten more minutes while I let fluids out and take others in.
I don't want to be all day pumping gas, so I figure $10 will be enough to get me home. Pee, pay, and come out to pump. Why the hell do they have TV's on top of the pumps now? Who thinks of these things? It's not like you can hear them with all the traffic and semis farting their way along the highway. Who wakes up every day and says oh, goodie, I want to go to the gas station to watch TV? Is it just another way to make money by selling advertising? Oh, I know, it's so we can keep you sort of entertained while we rape your wallet, kind of like at least kissing you before telling you to bend over...and wth? I know I paid $10, so why is this freaking pump stopping dead at $9.99? No amount of squeezing will get it to budge. Are you kidding me? Did it cost a penny to use the ladies? Isn't this illegal? Is there some sort of gas TV surcharge? I want my damn penny! Never mind. I want to go home and go back to bed.
And I think someone else is gonna have to go to the airport to pick my mother up when she comes back. Looks like a job for the zookeeper himself.
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