You Can’t Get There From Here

THIS MORNING I FOUND MYSELF TRAPPED in the middle of a conversation that went from confusing all the way to positively incoherent.

The morning started out quietly which is all I ask for until I have evidence of a stable heartbeat and access to coffee.

I got to my usual spot in the corner at the Chapel of St. Arbucks (Patron Saint of Jittery People) and began my climb to bipedal humanoid status. There was only one lone member of The Usual Suspects present. He was there when I arrived, so I assumed that he had slept there overnight. He was a half step ahead of me toward the ability to speak in a recognizable language.

He told me that he and his wife were going to Cincinnati that day. I pointed out to him that he was at St. Arbucks and his wife was nowhere to be seen.

He looked around…”Oh, she’s still at home – packing.”

I nodded, hoping that he would remember to go get her before getting on the Interstate.

As the morning moved along a few other “Worshipers” arrived. The trip to Cincinnati came up again.

“How are you getting there?”

“I’d planned on driving.”

We all agreed that was the best way since there was going to be luggage and he was going to get onto I-70.

“You do know that part of I-465 in Indy is closed?”

“That could present a problem. How else should I go?”

That opened the floodgates. Four different people began to offer differing alternative ways to get from Terre Haute (That’s French for, “Take the bus.”) to Cincinnati, Ohio. I have no idea if those suggestions made sense or not, but I did hear someone utter the word “Michigan.” So, I don’t know.

I have a feeling that if those too helpful folks had been with Lewis and Clark, instead of Sacajawea, we would all be speaking Blackfoot.

That litany of road numbers and detours went on for ten minutes. I was lost and I hadn’t even left my chair. I do not think that the fellow trying to get to Ohio had a snowballs chance in Phoenix of making it alive. I fear that they are going to end up like The Donner Party – stranded somewhere desperate, insane, and ending up resorting to cannibalism. Rescuers will find their tragic remains a half mile from a Waffle House.

I couldn’t take it. I had to get out of there. I drained my coffee, and got a free refill to go. I was going to survive.

For me to get home it was a trip of less than a mile. It took me 45 minutes. Somehow all of that gibberish about detours and closed roads infected my highly caffeinated brain and I found myself staring at a sign that read, “Welcome to Illinois – the Land of Lincoln.”

I pulled over, cried for a minute, and then slapped my face like Cher did to Nicholas Cage in the movie “Moonstruck.”

“Snap out of it!”

I got home. All of the ice in my coffee was melted.

I don’t ever want to go to Cincinnati.

 

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