LUNCHTIME CHAOS

Lunch date!  Yay!  I like lunch dates.  Lunch dates are good for relieving stress, right?  Right?

Finally, I have a chance to get together with two friends, and we decide to go to lunch.  Sure, I shouldn't be going.  I have a pot roast cooking in the crock pot, so I don't need a big lunch, but I don't get to see these friends often enough, so I'm in.  I am totally in.

One of my friends lives down a long street attached to another street that abuts to yet another street.  It's always fun to get to her house -- it's really easy to misjudge the roads in because two of them are connected with a giant telephone pole in the middle, and, if there has been a snow storm recently, who knows how much of her long, secluded street will be plowed.  Turns out the street is mostly clear, so I bomb on in, slog through the leftover snow, park my car, and slop through the slushy melting stuff to reach her house.

We decide to take her SUV to pick up our other pal so we can all chat on the way to lunch ... and all through lunch ... and all the way home again.  Since my car is parked in my friend's driveway, I am the last one to get dropped off.

Or am I?

As we make our final approach to my friend's street, a police car blocks our way.  We are still a mile short of her road, though.  Surely we should be able to get through.  Nope, we are told.  We can try to go around, but there is a house fire on the street that abuts my friend's property, the street separated from hers by a telephone pole.

This brings on several problems.  First and foremost, is my friend's house okay?  Second, and also very important, is her dog safe?  Third, will she able to get down her street?  And, lastly, will I be able to get my car out to rescue the pot roast from the crock pot (and make sure the liquid doesn't all cook out, creating my own fire hazard)?

Cop #1sends us in a huge circle.  We end up about a quarter of a mile from my friend's house but cannot go any further because of the way her road connects to another road, the road where the fire is.  A large firetruck and two cruisers block our entry (and my exit).  Leaving my leftover salad in her car, we hoof it over to where the action is.  Will she be able to get home?  Will I be able to get out?

Cop #2 says I can get out but I have to go right now, this minute, or it might be hours until they let me leave.  Technically I have almost ninety minutes until the crock pot causes the fire department to come to my house, too.  We debate: Do I stay and take a chance I will be blocked in too long?  Does my friend have to drive me miles out of my way to rescue my damn pot roast? 

In the end, I abandon my friend.  We hoof it through the slushy roads to get my car.  We make sure her dog and house are both safe, then I make my way around the firetruck and cruisers and circle the long way home.  By the time I park in my own driveway, my friend texts me that the activity is over and all the emergency people have left.  I could've stayed, after all.

The pot roast is saved, but, alas, the salad stayed in my friend's car.  Small sacrifices to stave off a second fire of the day.  Needless to say, lunch is an adventure, as always, which is why my friends and I only see each other occasionally.  Such chaos is bad for the blood pressure.