Traffick

It's deja vu all over again. I was planning to watch 2046, Wong Kar-Wai's latest (it's sad I have to give his full name, as Wong doesn't evoke enough familiarity of a Spielberg or Godard). I was about to leave, and saw Jaime stretching before his weekend run. Naturally, I went down to talk to him. But it was ten past 10 AM, and I had one hour to get to Bethesda.

The distance from College Park to Bethesda is about 25 minutes, which is assuming, as I do on weekends, that there's no traffic. That's essentially door to door. I can spend just 25 minutes on the Beltway portion if I were going on my normal morning commute.

So instead of heading out right away, I talked to Jaime for like 15 minutes. That put me at 10:30, leaving the bare minimum amount of time. Still, I figured I had ten minutes of buffer, with movie previews, so I only had to be there by 11:10 AM. It would be close, but fine.

Disaster number one. I couldn't start my car. The battery seemed fine. I was getting the normal chug-chug-chug, but it was getting the motor started. I have a recent car, and so the dramatic "car won't start in cold weather", a staple in fake drama (see, for instance, Jagged Edge), should never happen. But, I was especially low on gas today. Normally, I can get at least 40 miles on what appears to be an empty tank of gas. I suspect there's like 3 gallons of gas, even when I'm "empty", which would allow me to travel at least 80 miles with 30 miles per gallon.

I figured I must be out of gas. But how to get more gas? I realized we had a lawn mower, and lawn mowers need gas, so I got the gas container, and poured in some gas, hopefully enough to start the car. This fortunately worked.

But that meant I needed to head to a gas station, which I would have to do anyway, though I had forgotten that I was that low on gas, and hadn't factored the time in. So, I put a full tank of gas, even though I had originally planned to put in about $5 which is now barely 2 gallons of gas. Traffic, oddly enough, was so bad right near the gas station that I decided I might as well fill the entire tank. It would't take that much longer, and I was probably going to have to wait.

The gas incident delayed me another ten minutes. Right now, it's 15 of 11 AM, and I have about twenty minutes to get to Bethesda. Again, do-able, since I still have trailers.

Disaster number two. The beltway traffic is crazy. It takes a while, but after listening to the radio, it's become the "perfect storm". In particular, there was an accident at exit 30 or so (Georgia Avenue). It had been pulled to the side. Then, right around Rockville (exit 34), they decided to do road repairs, and so we're down to three lanes. Finally, there's an accident on 270 (exit 35), southbound, that's blocking all traffic heading south. That might not have affected me, but still, I was fidgeting mightily.

By the time I get to the Rockville exit to head to Bethesda, it's already 15 past 11. It should only have been 11 AM if there was no traffic. It would take me at least ten more minutes to get there, and by then, I would have missed fifteen minutes of the film, so I said forget it, and headed to eat at Cheesecake Factory.

Ah. Cheesecake Factory. Is it worth eating there? The prices are usually $10 or more, but in exchange, you get tons of food, enough for two people. Except I'm only one. I don't want to eat that much food, and they won't give me any less. Sigh. I should think twice before eating there.

All I can say is that frustration is the difference between expectation (twenty minutes to drive from College Park to Bethesda) and reality (twenty minutes just on the Beltway, plus having to get gas). I know, it's my fault for not planning ahead.

And I didn't even get to the point that I was planning to watch this without Dave. I offered, and he just said he couldn't make it. He didn't throw out any counterproposal. He could say I'd love to watch it with you, but I have plans this weekend. Let's say we watch it on Tuesday night. Does that work for you?, except that a bit too much commitment on his part, and he probably wants to arrange it with others, which means we're at the whims of other people's schedule.

I figured, forget it. I'm going to watch it anyway. Let him figure out his own way, if he doesn't want to plan to watch it.

Anyway, I'll probably watch it tomorrow. Hopefully, traffic will be back to normal by then.