Monday, December 03, 2007

Only Mr. Magoo has worse mornings

While the tribulation is still fresh, I'll describe to you a morning that only the consistently klutzy might appreciate.

We were a couple minutes late leaving the house this morning because I coudn't find my tumbler full of hot coffee. I searched all over for it, only to find that it and everything else I was searching for were already in the car with my husband, who was dilligently warming up the auto in the driveway while I ran through the house like a chicken with its head cut off. So, I sit down in the car, miserable, thinking that I wasn't going to get any coffee before work this morning (a train ride in the winter without something warm to sip is a nightmare!) and there it was, nestled in the cupholder. *grumble*

I applied my makeup in the car on the way to the train station, finishing my lip gloss just in time. I grab everything and break to the platform to make the next train when I notice an official wearing an orange reflective work vest talking to a few human popsicles on the platform. I ask a woman who is leaving the platform what's going on, and she says that rail service to downtown is suspended. Yay. I call Dave and he does a quick 180 back to the station.

I drop Dave off just before 8 a.m. and head toward downtown, which is a nightmare from Dave's office. It took me 30 minutes to go maybe 15 miles. I kept hitting school zones, which slow traffic to 20 mph, a snail's pace, and every side-street was crowded with perpetual lane changers (you know the type, the lane next to them is inching along only a bit faster than theirs, so they move into it, and soon after they move the lane they were previously in begins to move faster than the one they just moved to, so they change again, ad infinitum).

When I FINALLY arrive at work, I'm pulling all of my stuff from the passenger side to the drivers side, and I think that my steaming hot coffee is lodged securely in the console cupholder, but as I drag my God-awful heavy messenger bag over it, the coffee tips into the driver's seat, dribbling all over, and I don't notice it until I am reaching into the car about 15 seconds later to retrieve it, which means that the entire tumbler of coffee is half spilled into the seat. Mumbling obscenities under my breath I grab as many cheap restaurant napkins as possible, making an effort to mop up as much coffee as I can, which is totally in vain. THis is the downside to insisting on freshly roasted dark brew coffee. Upside: my car smells delicious. I will have to skip yoga tonight in order to clean up my coffee mess, which will fortunately also give me a few minutes to hang my hanging plants in the yoga room.

3 comments:

Olivia said...

This represents everyone's morning commute to some extent. For me it's forgetting something in the flat, and the elevators are still broken so I have to go up all the stairs to get it. Then I get to the station and there is a signal failure somewhere up the line causing congestion on my route.

You are complaining about 15 miles in 30 minutes. Well, how does 6 miles in one hour sound? That's London transport on a good day.

Miss Dallas said...

Worst part of the story is that it doesn't end. When I got home and cleaned up the car I tried to hang my plants in the yoga room, only to find out that the hooks I bought to hand them with won't secure into the ceiling!!! HOW OFF PUTTING!

Olivia said...

LOL!
HOW QUAINT IS THAT PHRASE?