This is going to be weak and pathetic, I know, but anything that raises my blood pressure to the danger level and ruins the rest of my day deserves a trip to the Pit!
It’s Sunday morning, and I have to be at work by 10:30 a.m. Store opens at 11. It is a 30 minute drive, but I have to stop at Tower City in downtown Cleveland, run in and get something from the store there and then get to work. I have a cushion…I don’t have to open the store til 11 am, but I really need some prep time.
I leave from my daughter’s house at 9:25. She lives 10 minutes from downtown, and she’s driving so I can hop out, run in and hop back in. Even with my bad knees I only need ten minutes downtown to get what I need…plenty of time. We head toward downtown and as we approach the Shoreway, we see it is blocked by the police, who direct us down a side road that we have never taken. No problem, we’ll just take the Lorain Rd. route…but we can’t get to Lorain because the police have blocked that, too. Everywhere we turn there are police roadblocks. I’m starting to stress, wondering what municipal emergency has struck Cleveland. Finally after zigging and zagging down side streets we see the reason…runners. We eventually get downtown and I’m really starting to get concerned about the time. I haven’t eaten, didn’t eat the night before, and really need to either stop and pick up food or send my daughter to bring me food because my co-worker doesn’t come in until 1 pm.
I run in to Tower City, run back out and jump back in the car. Great. Plenty of time to hit the highway and get to Parma. Except now we can’t get OUT of downtown. They are letting two cars at a time cross Ontario to get on I-90, and we are oh, about 400 cars back. So we swing out of line and head back down through the Flats to W. 25th, but that will put us on I-90W instead of E, so my daughter, who claims she knows a quick way back to I-90E heads off down a side road…and takes a wrong turn. It is now about 10:20 am. We find ourselves back downtown, somehow now on the other side of Ontario, and the police are still only letting two cars at a time through, but we’re at the head of the line! My head is pounding, my stomach is gurgling, and my daughter thinks the officer is waving her through…but no, he’s waving the other street through and screams at my daughter as she tries to make the turn.
From this point I can’t remember how we got on 90, but then we hit the 176 and then my daughter starts arguing with me as to wheter it is faster to go to the end of the 176 and take Brookpark, or hop on I-480. I don’t much care, I just want to get to work. I ask her if she will run to the grocery store after she drops me off and get me some food, but she says no, let’s run though Burger King and get breakfast and a salad. Since she’s driving, I refrain from killing her, and we hit the drive-thru at 10:40.
By the time we get to the mall it’s 10:50. I need to get in, get to the bathroom, count down the registers, turn on the lights and open up…and the register is in Abort, Retry, Fail mode. I reboot, run to the potty and flip on lights. By the time I get back out the register is back up, I count the drawer and there are customers already waiting at the gate. I open up at 11:00:30 and wait on three people picking up orders and looking, and try to get the rest of the opening crap done. I don’t calm down until about noon.
I’m pissed at my daughter, pissed at my boss for not going downtown herself to get this item for HER order, pissed at the rain, pissed at Burger King for the lousy Croissanwich I just wolfed down in five minutes, pissed at people who show up at the mall right at opening when they should be in church, but mostly I am pissed at the Cleveland Marathon for blocking off any entry or exit from downtown Cleveland that involved hi-speed highways or convenience. Yes, I know that downtown Cleveland is a virtual ghost-town on Sunday mornings, making it ideal for a marathon, but I’m pissed and mere rationality is not going to work. I left in plenty of time to accomplish my errands and more, and I was nearly late opening, and I had a complicated bit of work to finish that really was better done before opening. I ate a crappy salad and had to buy an expensive pop from the machine and it’s that time of the month and I hate runners! There! I’m done!