I didn't get home until 7:35pm tonight. Theoretically, work is done at 6:00pm.

Traffic was hideous. I kinda expected it, being that a 3 day weekend is coming up and probably lots of people take Friday to make it a 4.

I left the office at 6:15pm, thinking that this would allow time for the worst of the traffic to pass through. I waited at the train stop for almost 10 minutes before I had a vague sense that I didn't have my keys. I checked my bags and sure enough, no keys.

At the office, the cleaning guy locks all the doors when he comes in. I used the restroom while he was there, so I carried my keys with me so I could get back in. As I walked into my office I realized that I never watered the plants so I put my keys down and took care of that, then waltzed out without them.

By the time I caught the next train and made to the park-n-ride it was 7:15pm but I-5 was still backed up.

I got turned for the on-ramp and immediately stopped in the backup just to get on the freeway. During metered time this on-ramp takes 2 lines of cars, but the meter was off and we very politely made a single file line to get on the freeway.

At the top of the ramp we have to merge with the people coming off Interstate. I was behind an aged Buick with an emblem on the back that said: Whiptastic Handling.

I wonder if that means, stalls every three minutes. Two girls were in the car. I kept a respectful distance, edging toward the shoulder because I figured if they stalled for long, and I was stuck too close behind, the other cars would smell the blood on the water and swoop around us, thus completely eff-ing me.

For some reason, the folks coming off Interstate seemed to think that us folks coming from Delta Park were cheating or something but several cars spontaneously decided to break from their single file line and block us from merging, thus forcing them to re-merge with themselves.

A gold colored Navigator cut me off and got behind the gasping Buick and I ungenerously hoped that it died in front of her.

It ended up taking me 20 minutes just to get on the freeway and I didn't get home until 7:35 pm. I told Bob that if that was going to be my commute all summer, I was going to kill myself. Historically, the evening commute on I-5 during summer is consistently hideous.

He made an encouraging argument for the three day weekend and whisked me off to Trader Joes for shopping.