I should probably be in jail right now. It's a long story, though. Oh, what the hell. Might as well tell it.
The roads are too icy to drive on in the morning, so
returning College Boy to school must wait until the freezing rain turns to just
plain old rain. We leave the house
around 1:00 p.m. and promptly sit in traffic on the highway. This is exactly how the trip to get him home
for Thanksgiving started, and it seems to be repeating itself at the end of the
Thanksgiving weekend. Bullshit -- no way
am I sitting in traffic for ninety minutes yet again, so I swerve to the
nearest exit and start heading toward the back roads.
Unfortunately, though, this town in New Hampshire is having
its Santa parade that starts on the secondary main street, then cuts across the
actual main street, then ends at the only other main street through the entire
place. That plus train tracks makes it
completely impossible to go north at all.
I (and about thirty other drivers) realize this all too late as we sit
in gridlock traffic where cones and sawhorses have been set up to impede our
northward progress.
College Boy starts navigating the roads on his cell phone,
and we dutifully follow all the detour signs.
Unfortunately the detour signs lead to a police matron-guarded dead
end. We and about sixty other cars start
turning around and madly try to find a way to go north. Anything to avoid the highway back-up.
We stop and ask the police matron how to get to Derry. She says. "28. Take a right."
"It's blocked for the parade," we say.
"Oh. Too
bad." And then she laughs at
us. The goddamn motherf***ing lard ass
lazy detour-hoarding slacker LAUGHS at us.
All I'm going to say before I tell the rest of the story is
that it's a damn good thing it is raining and that there is a huge line of
traffic both being tricked by the detour and trying to get out of the aftermath
of being tricked by the detour.
I lean my head out the open window and yell at her,
"Shut the fuck up, you fucking bitch!"
She laughs harder, and I throw her the bird and yell,
"Fuck you!"
Yup, merry Christmas and happy Santa parade.
By the time we reach the highway again, three miles south of
where we exited the highway and started the detours in the first place, forty
minutes later, and only eight miles from our original starting point, I am
livid, near tears, and quite sure I will be summonsed to court for verbally
abusing an officer of the law.
In my defense, and in defense of the hundred or so cars who
are also bamboozled, let me say that a
place as busy as this particular town shouldn't be blocking its only three
major points of egress on the major Sunday shopping day of the
post-Thanksgiving/pre-Christmas holiday season.
Also in my defense, when someone is lost and asks a cop for directions,
that cop (if she is a cop and not just impersonating one) shouldn't send said
person into a blocked street then laugh at her.
Honestly, that behavior does indeed make you a fucking bitch. Period.
So, lastly in my defense, I truly was not lying, therefore it cannot be
considered abuse; it's more like stating a fact.
I'm still expecting a summons in the mail. Actually, probably not. If the fucking bitch is too lazy to help me,
she is probably too lazy to write down my plate number. And, truth be told, I probably am not the
first nor the last to scream at her about the "detour" that turned
out to be nothing more than leading lambs to slaughter.
If I do end up in jail, though, someone bring a copy of this
blog entry and some cash to the police station and bail me the hell out. Lord knows I don't want to end up being
charged with choking the bitch; screaming at her upset me enough.
That's my defense, and I'm sticking to it.
