A Three Hour Tour

It wasn’t exactly a tour. It was more like a 3 hour headache! Last Tuesday I left work at my usual time, 4:30 and took my usual route to get onto I-465, which means taking I-65 to 465. As I branched off 65 to meet up with 465 I noticed that the cars in front of me were all stopped. I immediately regretted that I hadn’t stayed on 65 and made my way home through the downtown area. As I came to a stop in the long line of traffic, I was glad that my script for my weekly church drama performance was in the car with me. I picked it up and started rehearsing my lines. Occasionally I would have to stop rehearsing to put my car back in “drive” and move a whopping foot or two down the road. After being at a nearly dead stop for about 35 minutes, a traffic report finally came on the radio. “A semi has tipped over and spilled its load on 465 at Crawfordsville Road. No injuries, but extensive clean-up.” It was then that I realized I wasn’t going to be getting home ANY time soon. After sitting in traffic for nearly an hour on the ramp from 65 to 465, I finally merged (at a snail’s speed) onto 465. By this point I had all of my lines memorized for the drama performance and there was no end in sight to the traffic. Suffering from boredom, I decided to start making phone calls. I couldn’t get a hold of mom, and Aaron was at work so I called Nick. I complained to Nick for a little while and then he had to hang up because he was going out to eat with a friend. Now, I’m an hour and a half into my traffic experience and I wasn’t even to the 38th street exit yet (which is about 2 or 3 miles from my office.) I bet you can guess what happened next…if you guessed that I was well on my way to a near pants-wetting issue then you were right! I was thankful that I had gone to the bathroom before I left work, but unfortunately I had A LOT of water to drink that afternoon! I was praying that I would make it to the 38th street exit soon so that I could run into McDonald’s and use the restroom before I had another disaster on my hands (or rather, on my seat). As I got a little closer to the 38th street exit, some cars started speeding (meaning that they were going about 20mph) by me on the right shoulder. I followed their lead, which I normally wouldn’t have done, but this was an emergency! Halleluiah! I made it to McD’s just in time and only 2.5 hours after leaving work! After the bathroom break, there was no way that I wanted to get back on 465 and sit for another 2.5 hours so I decided to cross over 465 on 38th street and work my way home through downtown roads. You won’t believe what happened next! As I passed over 465 the traffic was completely clear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! In the 5 minutes it took me to get off at the exit and go to McDonald’s, the traffic completely cleared! Of course, at that point it was too late for me to get back on 465 because I had passed the on-ramp. I continued heading east and decided to cut back south to catch the next road that had a ramp onto 465. I turned onto a road to take me south and went for about .5 miles then I found myself at a dead stop AGAIN! I was furious at this point and called Nick again to complain once more. He said, “Just another reason that I don’t want to live in a big city.” Let me tell you, I was hating city living at that point! FINALLY, (after also making a phone call to Sarah to complain) I made it back to 465 and was on my way home again. At 7:40, after my 3+ hour adventure, I finally arrived home…and went to the bathroom again, just because I could…LOL.