Friday morning

When I went to work at 8:00 a.m., I thought I would be done at noon, but found myself on the schedule until 2:00, which worked out well, as there was no way I could get it done in four hours.  Not what I had expected, or agreed to when asked if I was available to come in when I was there on Tuesday, but thankful for the time, as I know there are weeks coming up when I will be lucky to get on the schedule for one day, and honestly: getting a paycheck for four or five hours is hardly worth getting up and replacing my pj's with the green Publix shirt.

Then when I got there, and discovered the game plan altered, I also found that those aggravating fresh fruit parfaits are on sale this week. Tedious, time-consuming, requiring lots of prep in the form of washing, slicing up a whole flat of strawberries before you can even start assembly. Just very time consuming - when I had expected to leave at noon.I left at the appointed time, in a hurry to get home, gather up my travel bag (which stays packed, as you can imagine!) and get on the road.

IF I had the whole afternoon off, there would have been all the time in the world getting my shirt-tail flapping-self organized. Maybe even a load of wash, or a bit of bathroom cleaning, before leaving home. To get in the road and be in Decatur long before the quitting time of three million people who would be charging along at death-defying speeds on the twelve lane highways.  I have long thought that one needs to be safely off the streets in the metropolis before 3 pm, which is the 'witching hour' for a dreadful increase in vehicle congestion, both on the swirling interstate highways and stop and go/traffic-light congested surface roads. It was 5 o'clock before I got off the perimeter and headed into town (on a street that was only seven lanes across instead of twelve!) but surprised by the fact that nothing was completely clogged up, immobile at rush hour...

Or maybe it was just due to my slipping in under the radar? Or maybe I was heading In when everyone else was heading Out? Or maybe all the hellacious snarls were on the north side of town and I was on the south? Or maybe I will get it sucked into a black hole of immobility when I am headed out on a hot  Friday afternoon with the other three million who want to go someplace cool for the weekend?