Every Little Thing is Gonna be All Right

This morning's commute was a debacle to end all debacles.

The ramp to 33 West was closed so I followed the detour.

But the detour ended at a closed road somewhere, I think, in Englishtown.

I turned around and found more detour signs and made a complete circle back to the closed road.

I had to stop following the signs that were leading me nowhere, so I turned off and got to a long line of cars waiting at a traffic light.

I thought this must be all the other cars that had gotten detoured.

I waited in the long line as the light changed 9,000 times and still we weren't getting anywhere.

Wouldn't it be stupid, I thought, if I'm waiting in all this traffic and still going the wrong way ...

So, I stopped the car, got out and asked the guy behind me. The guy who I'd refused to let in in front of me a few miles back but the person behind me kindly had.

He told me I was going the wrong way. I had to turn back and make a right at the Agway and then ...and then I couldn't get the rest because traffic started to move.

I hopped back into my car and made a totally illegal u-turn, in the middle of which I, for a moment, sat face-to-face with a police officer sitting in a speed trap.

I completed my illegal u-turn, resigned to the fact I would soon be pulled over.

I watched in the rear view mirror, going over in my mind how I'd play it, but miraculously, the guy stayed put.

I head to the Agway and see all the same things I'd seen when I was going the wrong way.

Fuckballs!

How do I get out of this hell-loop!

I make a right and again, join a line of traffic waiting for a light to turn that's so far away, I have no idea how many times it turned while I sat there inching forward.

Again, I think I could be sitting in all this traffic, just to keep going the wrong way.

I call my brother, because I have no GPS, and he's all hooked up.

I need your help, I say.

What's the matter?

I'm lost I think in Englishtown.

Where are you?

I think in Englishtown.

But where?

I don't know ...wait ...I need a sign.

I tell him the signs and he says he's driving too and will be at a store soon where they have a map and he can help me. I hang up, then call him back.

I don't care about the map, I say. I'm still lost but stay on the phone because I'm not just lost but also sad and all the blood's drained out of my veins.

He tells me my blood is made of star dust from a million years ago and this lifetime is just a blip on the screen and none of it matters in the long run anyway.

I say wait, I'm going to ask the lady behind me if I'm going the right way. Don't hang up.

He didn't.

I ask the lady behind me. She says she thinks she knows where I need to go, but not really.

I ask the next lady behind her.

She tells me she first needs to orient herself. Then she prepares a mental picture and says, slowly pointing backward, I think you need to go straight back that way. Don't get off this road. Just turn around and go straight back.

I get back into my car and make my second illegal u-turn of the morning.

Eventually I see the highway I need. So close, but it was all completely unfamiliar. Not only to myself, but to the others on the road too.

I tell my brother I'm back on the right road.

He tells me I didn't even need a map. It was always going to be OK.