As Gawd’z Me Witness…

I left home in my truck this morning at 8:03 a.m. All was going as smoothly as could be expected, with me getting down to Commonwealth and Wilshire in six minutes and passing Crenshaw and Jefferson about 20 minutes after that. If all went well from there I would’ve been to work in another 15 minutes. Tops.

It didn’t go well.

Traffic up to La Cienega was backed-up halfway to La Brea. Once across that seven-minute bottleneck it was easy going until I crossed Overland at 8:45 am. I should’ve been parking three minutes later, but instead check it: those remaining 1.6 fucking miles between Overland and Jefferson to Sepulveda and Centinela took 36 minutes to traverse (with the only visual clue as to the jam’s cause seen on Sepulveda as I finally turned left off of it near work: a brightly colored “Road Work Ahead” sign).

I could’ve parked near Overland and walked to work quicker.

And by bike!? That’s the freakin’ point: five sweet minutes — if that! — spent slicing through the gridlock  like a knife through butter. You don’t think I was kicking myself? In the head, dammit!

So here’s the deal — the ULTIMATUM, if you will: four wheels become the adamant last resort, instead of the begrudged first resort. No more 60/40 split between bike and truck. From now on 100% bike. Anything needs to be trucked to — Vons, Costco, et cetera, can be done on the weekend.

Sure, this massive traffic attack may have been the after-effect of of an isolated — and yes, tragic –  incident and that things will be back to normal (whatever that is) tomorrow.  While I’m certainly sorry the trucker died, the good news is I can prevent it from negatively impacting me the next time.

So enough of this whiny “oh but I’m not back to full lung capacity after my bronchial episode” or “but I need to get home early for Halloween.” Tomorrow and until further notice: two wheels are the primary mode. The GOTO.

And if/when I end up having no other choice but to resort to my vehicle because of weather or health issues, it’s gonna cost me my normally “lazy” mornings. Instead of rolling out at 8 a.m., I’m gonna be hitting the road at 7:30 and have expectations of a 90-minute commute preloaded rather than dumped on me while trapped in the middle of one.

Grrrrr.