This morning the bus which I normally ride to work was diverted by a traffic accident with fatalities that required closing the frontage roads crossing over I-35. We were sent down a neighborhood street by the police, only to fetch up, a dozen blocks later, behind a semi that had been diverted down the same street, and which was now stuck because his 13’6”-high trailer wouldn’t fit under the twelve-foot high tree limb that reached across the street, and the street was so narrow and so winding, there was no place for him to back up or to turn around, nor could the bus find room to get around him or to back up, because a string of cars trailed behind us down the hill. So all any of us could do was to “Sit! Sit! Sit! Sit!”, as The Cat in the Hat put it.
I had my cell phone, so I called in to work and told my supervisor and the supervisors of other IRS employees on the bus what was happening and why we would be late. After a few minutes more, I realized that if I were to wait for Capital Metro to get us out of this situation, I might still be sitting and waiting a couple of hours later . . . so I got off the bus and started walking.
I walked for fifty minutes and close to two miles to get to the service center, and my ankles and knees were promising me several days of pain and inflammation by the time I came through the front door forty-five minutes late, at 7:15. They’re still promising.
Wall Street is reincarnated next to the sleeping frog. Fnord.
