Thursday, January 20, 2011

Maybe I'll start riding my bike

I know it's been a while since there's been a truly meaningful post on here. And I promise it has nothing everything to do with the glass bottle of wine I've been drinking when I get home at night. This week's nightly glass bottle of wine has been particularly necessary though for one reason. And I've been hesitant to share it here because remember when I was all PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION IS RUINING MY LIFE AND EVERYONE SAW MY VAGINA? And then I finally, FINALLY, bought my very first car at the age of 26? And the stars aligned and the babies stopped crying and no one went to bed hungry anymore and global warming stopped all was right with the world?

Well since then my patience has been waning. But after all those months of silently crying on the bus, there was no way I was going to start complaining about this. But suddenly this is just a bit much to bear. And I figure, if you're not complaining about something, then what the hell is there to talk about, right?

My life has a new arch-nemesis and that nemesis is the motherflipping drive. My commute went from bad to bad. Whereas before I had to deal with infrequent trains and waiting for the bus in the pouring rain and sitting next to the man who clips his toenails, now I have to deal with shitty roads and the horrible traffic and every other asshole driver out there and let me tell you, Massachusetts is just overflowing with asshole drivers.

Let me introduce you to my drive. First there's the babillion other people trying to get from the South Shore in to Boston all at the same time. There are only two ways to do this. One is the highway -- which, trust me, is the biggest shit show I've ever seen -- and the other is Route 3A -- these days, only a slightly smaller shit show. The highway is out of the question. There's no way in hell I'm going to drive 30 miles at 5 miles per hour. I'd rather run to work, which, trust me, I've considered.

So that leaves me with Route 3A. While not awful under normal circumstances -- a straight shot down the coastline from Boston to Scituate -- this week it has been one dirty bitch. There are street lights the entire way that seem to be timed to ensure that you will be stuck at every red light for 25 miles. Obnoxious, but I can deal with that.

Then there's the conditions of the road itself. We've been dumped on with snow this winter and with the snow comes the salt trucks and when the salt trucks appear, so do the potholes. There are potholes on 3A big enough to swim laps in. And in the dark, they're hard to see. While I have most of the potholes memorized now, every once in a while a new one will take me by surprise and it feels like my front axle has just been snapped in half; my teeth will clatter and my head will bounce and the entire car will jerk. Obnoxious, but I can deal with that too.

And then there's the construction on the Neponset Bridget. There are a number of bridges I have to cross going to and from Boston, the largest of which connects the town of Quincy to the city of Boston. This bridge has been under construction for two years and is still considered one of the most structurally deficient bridges in the country. You want to see potholes? You could host an Olympic diving event in these babies. One day I'm quite certain my car is just going to fall right through what I assume is just a few inches of cement left to the water below. This thing looks like a cracker eroding away in the rain.

The traffic this construction causes is incredible. Six lanes have been reduced to two. The bridge is unavoidable on 3A and the only way to get around it would the highway. So, like me, every idiot who doesn't want to sit in the parking lot of the highway instead sits in the parking lot of the Neponset Bridge. If I time my ride right (meaning if I were to come in at 10 a.m. and leave by 3 p.m. -- wouldn't that be nice?), I can knock off my commute in about 45 minutes. During the holiday season, traffic was light and my commute took about an hour. But for some reason, this week that traffic is back with a vengeance. It's grabbed me from behind, pimp slapped me across the face and given me a kick in the ass for good measure. This week I've been spending a solid 40 minutes sitting in traffic on the Quincy side of the bridge on top of that 60 minute drive.

AND THEN. There's the doozie of all doozies. The bridge BEFORE the Neponset Bridge is a drawbridge in the town of Weymouth. Like the Neponset, it's unavoidable. YOU WOULD THINK that considering the volume of cars that travel up 3A, they would schedule the bridge openings for non-peak hours. Because that would be logical, no? It's not a major shipping channel. It's not often that a large boat needs to get through. Only open the bridge between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. or any time after 7. That makes sense to me. WELL TOO BAD BECAUSE THEY OPEN THAT BRIDGE WHENEVER THEY DAMN WELL PLEASE. Like how about THIS MORNING? At, say, 7:30? Right when I was rushing to an early meeting that I had gotten up early for. For, oh I dunno, HALF AN HOUR?! That sounds about right. WHO THE FUCK PLANS THAT SHIT?!

Due to all of the above factors, I have not had a drive to or from work that has lasted anything less than an hour and a half. That's three hours of my day spent squirming in a seat listening to bad music. My ass has spent so much time in the car that it's sore. I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING. My ass hurts. MY. ASS. HURTS. My right ass cheek is aching as I type this. When I got home last night I couldn't stand to sit for one more second. I stood during dinner. I couldn't even relax on the couch and ended up settling in an exhausted, disgruntled downward dog-esque lean in front of the TV.

If you have a dog, you know that this is essentially universal dog language for two things, depending on the dog:
1) please play with me, or
2) please rape me

So no, it was not a relaxing evening.

I've come to the conclusion that no matter where you are going and no matter how you plan on getting there, it is a pain in the ass to get from Scituate to ANYWHERE. Now I understand why no one leaves. People are born there and die there because it's just too annoying to go anywhere else. They're townies out of necessity. It's the only way to avoid the utter inconvenience of public transportation or the butt-numbing traffic when driving. You're stuck, so you might as well saddle up with your other local friends and drink yourselves stupid.

3 comments:

Becky Mochaface said...

Now B, asking them to be logical in the scheduling of the drawbridge opening is just a bit much to ask, don't ya think? I mean that's a tad bit more difficult than say pulling a million dollars out their butts or making it rain chocolate raindrops.

rory said...

Try listening to books on CD.
I loooooove sitting in traffic now.

Kait said...

I forgot to comment on this when I originally read this, but--yikes. I will occasionally get driven to work by my boyfriend, and we stopped taking the neponset bridge when the construction started last year because omg WHAT is going on there.

we now go through milton and then dorchester to boston. since I don't know which part of boston you work in, it's hard to say whether that'd be better for you, but you wouldn't be stuck in much traffic very much at all, if that route would make any sense for you.

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