An Afternoon's Drive
The plan was to take off work today in the mid-afternoon and drive up to Milwaukee to catch the Brewers v. Mariners game, christened Paul Molitor Day because Molitor, one of my childhood idols and the current hitting coach for Seattle, would be honored for his many years as a Brewer and upcoming induction into the Hall of Fame. In addition, today is my brother's birthday so he and a whole group of family and friends were making the trip down from central Wisconsin.
In reality, things did not go exactly as planned. The trip to Milwaukee normally takes about three hours so I left before 3:30 in order to get through Chicago before rush hour and be at Miller Park in time for the 7:05 start. Unfortunately I-94 had a different idea. In addition to the Skyway (I-90) construction, whatever governing body in charge of planning roadwork in Illiana decided to work on 94 at the same time, effectively slowing every path between Northwest Indiana and Chicago to a crawl. By the time I saw the Sears Tower, I was in the midst of rush hour traffic. Three hours later, I was still in the north suburbs with two hours' drive left until Milwaukee (putting the total trip at an estimated five hours), which meant I would miss about half of the game. It was at this point that I decided to call the family to apologize and cut my losses by calling an end to my ill-fated trip.
To give you an idea of the kind of traffic I was sitting in on the way there, the return trip took an hour and fifteen minutes. So I've been in the car for four hours, the trip has cost about $25 in gas and incidentals, I've wasted a $15 ticket and missed my brother's birthday, not to mention a potentially great night, but at least it ends there, right? Well, I decided to turn on WTMJ on the way home to catch some of the game. As it turns out, the game started about forty-five minutes late because of an extended tribute to Molitor, so I would've missed much less than anticipated.
COME ON.
I'd like to blame many things for the disaster that was tonight (the state of Illinois highway system, the city of Chicago, the automobile culture of the United States, etc.) but I'm sure my own foolishness played a bigger part than I'd like to admit. At times like this, it's good to have some delicately peated friends to help you through.