Orange crushed
Summer in Pittsburgh can only mean one thing: It’s orange cone season. I can’t leave my house within a mile in any direction without being stopped by a road crew.
Every day, someone in a bright-yellow hard hat and matching fluorescent yellow vest stops me on the street with a sign. It seems to consistently occur whenever I’m in a hurry, which is often. Friendly, smiling people are always stopping me from my desired route through the city and its environs. I smile back, even though I am biting my lip so hard I draw blood.
I am not a patient person. I think I am … until I find myself behind the wheel of a car. Suddenly, it’s like I left my patience and forgiveness in my other pants, but I was in too much of a hurry to dig them out of my pockets before leaving the house.
Still, I’m not the worst. I was reminded that I wasn’t a horrible monster when someone behind me was beeping at me as pedestrians crossed in front of my car. I was kind enough not to run them over to accommodate the impatient person behind me.
Side note: I take great comfort in knowing that no matter how awful I can be, there’s always someone worse. There are advantages to watching a society crumble around you if you look hard enough.
But I digress, like I do. I love summer, but it’s taking me longer than ever to get a few miles from my house. I can go faster on an ice-slicked road than I can on a hot, dry one that’s being repaired. In Mt Lebanon last week, I was detoured from one road crew to the next. Competing construction boxed me in. I missed one of the detour signs and ended up back where I started. My blood pressure skyrocketed into astronomical numbers. I felt like Harry Potter in a hedge maze. Replace the broom with a Mazda and dragons with construction crews, and it’s the same thing. Getting to my destination without getting anyone killed before I was late was akin to winning the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
P.S. I don’t remember what was chasing Daniel Radcliffe in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” but dragons are always a good guess for movies about witches and wizards.
I have set all my clocks ahead by 20 minutes to frighten me into leaving the house earlier, and I’m still not getting anywhere on time. Missing detour signs and ending up back where I started certainly doesn’t help matters. Letting go and saying, “I didn’t know the road came back around this way,” is the only way to maintain any shred of sanity in such situations. It should’ve been obvious after the third left in a row.
Ironically, with all the road crews blocking my way, I’m still hitting potholes the size of moon craters.
All I can do is grab the keys and pray for patience. I’ll get there eventually.