Tunnel vision

I woke up alarmingly late this morning, hustled to get my shit together, dropped Zoe off at school and began the 20-minute trip to work. Right as I was passing the day care center, Joe pulled RIGHT OUT IN FRONT OF ME.

This has been happening a little more often lately than I care for. I've noticed though that when he is behind me, he has the courtesy (or gumption) to pull off and wait a while.

So, today I returned the favor and took the parkway into work.

I don't normally drive major highways in Pittsburgh unless I have to, and today I was reminded why: Even though it was a clear day, even though it was 10 in the morning, EVEN THOUGH IT WASN'T A FULL MOON, traffic came to a halt at the top of Green Tree Hill. Why?

Because there's a tunnel coming up in a couple miles, of course!!!!


All these drivers have probably not been in a tunnel for the past 12 hours, so we must all proceed with caution! Who knows what could possibly be in that mountain orifice since we drove through it last night??

I really expected to see some catastrophe that was making traffic crawl, but there was nothing. Once inside the tunnel, things picked up. And this is not unique to this particular tunnel either.

It's funny that in Fort Lauderdale, in ALL of Fort Lauderdale, there is ONE tunnel, it goes under the New River, and people actually pick up speed and drive through it recklessly and honk even if they never use their horns anywhere else, as if it is some sort of amusement attraction.

Pittsburghers have a thing about holes in hills. I don't get it.

But after all that, and more importantly, as I was getting out of my car at work, Joe was just pulling into the parking lot.

I won!