Rant #3,226: Yesterday

Yesterday was as rough a day as I have had since we decided to move from our residence of the past many decades.

Among many other things I had to do yesterday, I had to drive out to my brother in law and pick up more boxes to prepare for our move.

He works for a major supermarket chain, and can get us as many boxes as we need, so, coupled with what we received from the moving company that we are using, and other boxes we received from my brother in law a few weeks back, we have plenty of boxes already prepared and ready to go to either the new dwelling or to the storage facility we are going to use … with many more items to box away until the move in 22 days.

My son had an in-person meeting with his counselor at our house, and then, on his day off, he and his friend were getting together, so I drove him to his friend’s house.

Almost immediately after I came back home, I had to go out to my brother in law’s house. He lives about 40 miles east of where we are now, a trip that usually takes about 50 minutes or so—

But yesterday, it took much, much longer.

I use the Long Island Expressway to get to his house, and yesterday, it was simply the graveyard that it has come to be known as.

Two exits before his exit, there was not only construction that shut down two of the lanes of the three-lane highway, but there was also an accident right around that point, so the regular movement that I had experienced when I went onto the roadway—the speed limit is 55 mph, but people go as high as 90 on this highway--was stifled by the time I got about four exits away from the area I just described to you.

All told, with everything going on, it took me not 50 minutes to get to my brother in law’s home, but more than 90 minutes.

It was one of the most excruciating car trips I have ever been on, and it was just to pack up a few more boxes.

Incredible … but it was only the beginning.

On the way back after picking up the boxes, there was some traffic—it was well into rush hour—but nothing really that bad … until I switched roadways.

I looked at the time, and it was getting closer to the time I had to pick up my son from his friend, so I decided to go straight to his frond’s house, which meant I had to get off of the LIE and go to the SOB—no, for those who don’t know, it does not stand for what you think it does, although that phrase was definitely uttered by myself and other drivers yesterday—the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway.

The SOB is usually a pain-free way to get from one place to another, with little traffic and a nice, clear ride.

But yesterday, it was anything but.

There was plenty of traffic on the roadway, and when I came close to another highway I had to go on to get to the house, it became apparent that this incredible traffic that I had encountered earlier was also present on the SOB, but for different reasons.

Enmeshed in more traffic, I finally got onto the Southern State Parkway, another one of the great highways on Long Island that is also one of the more treacherous roadways in New York State and in the country, with numerous fatalities registered each and every year.

I encountered even more traffic, and needing to go about two exits became an excruciating exercise.

But I made it, hopped off and made it to my destination—about 10 minutes early.

So waiting tor my son, I figured I would look on my phone to see if there was any work for me to do—and there was plenty.

Again, I had not looked in about four hours during the afternoon after having done something for work in the morning in between everything else I was doing, so I figured there would be something, but not this much!

So I prepared what I had to do for later, finally picked up my son—and went on the Southern State on the east side, and encountered even more traffic.

We left the Southern State to go to the Wantagh Parkway, and finally, I was on a roadway without any traffic at all, and got off on Merrick Road and—

Hit plenty of more rush hour traffic.

I finally got home at 5:30 p.m. after being on the road since 1 p.m. or so, ate my dinner in a rush, and did what work I could until after 8 p.m., when I finally finished what I could do … and promptly conked out on the couch while watching TV with my son.

It was an excruciating day for me to say the least, but at least I got more boxes to pack things away in.

For the love of cardboard … !

(On Wednesday, I have an early doctor’s appointment—nothing terrible—so I will skip tomorrow’s Rant and be back here on Thursday. Speak to you then.)