I rolled to 78,500 miles on my car last night. That's 78,000 miles I've driven that car, which is a damn lot of miles. (I'm making an exception of 500 miles for my letting other people drive the car at one time or another.)

I had dinner with Sandy the other night and she asked me what kinds of things I hated and/or though sucked so bad. The first thing that occurred to me is how much of my day I spend either waiting for elevators, or waiting for traffic lights. My apt bldg has only one elevator for the north wing of the building, and it services 9 floors. At the peak hours of the day, (rush hour am and pm), there are obviously a bunch of people trying to use it. Plus I think that it's a dumb elevator, that doesn't really stop in one or the other direction to pick up extra floors when it very well could. I could also use the fire stairs, but 8 flights of stairs is not my idea of fun with my acl knee... Not just yet anyway. Not if I want to get to my destination TODAY.

So when I finally get out of my building in the mornings, and I walk to work, I have to cross Graham St. The problem with the part of Graham at 5th and 6th, is that 5th and 6th are one way streets that go east and west respectively. Some city planner decided that because they were one way streets, they didn't need crossing signals in both directions. I guess also when the traffic signals were put in, they didn't have as much residential there as they do now. Anyway, inevitably, I run the risk of being smooshed because I'm not always sure how much time I have before the light changes. Plus drivers in Charlotte are notorious red-light runners, so while the average driver might not go when the light is green if they see me crossing the road, I run the risk of being hit by the guy racing to make the red light. So, long story long, I try to wait out the lights for the next cycle before crossing the street.

Or if it's raining I say fuck it and take the free circulator bus. But then I don't get my good half-mile walk in.

So if I make it to work without dying (3 or 4 more intersections later. Luckily those have crossing signals) I am confronted with the elevator at work fubar. There are technically 8 elevator bays, but no matter when you arrive in the foyer, or when you leave, only about 3 of them seem to be running. Multiply that by 75 people per floor (I'm being generous) and 24 floors and you end up with a mass of annoyed people waiting for the elevator.

Now that it's winter in Charlotte, and we're starting to have some wintery weather, you will no doubt be stuck in the elevator with one of three types of people (or a combination of all):

1. The person that smells like moth balls because they just took their wool coat out of storage.
2. The chronic sniffler. Are you sick, or is it just because it's cold out. Either way, yuk.
3. A smeller of the "I just got coffee", "I just farted", or "I'm wearing too much perfume to cover up the moth ball smell" variety. Phee-you.

And so eventually I get on the elevator in the morning, with the crowding and the smells, and no doubt there will be 10 people in the elevator all going to 10 SEPARATE floors. I'm on 16 so I usually have to wait a while. And the elevator is going up and stopping at every floor, when all of a sudden it decides to stop on a floor for which no one IN the elevator has pressed the button. For the sake of argument, let's say it's "4". So a person gets on at floor "4", and presses the button for "5".

Come on now people, would it kill you to take the stairs once in a while???

So in one of those true twists of fate that almost never happens to people except me, I tell this story to Sandy at dinner Monday night. Tuesday I run the litany of all the things I just went through, and on my way home and down in the elevator, the elevator stops at "5", and a girl gets on a pushes a button for "4". To the rest of us in the elevator she says,

"I'm sorry, but they won't let us take the stairs!"

I don't know how to feel about that, other than maybe I was being taught a lesson.



I guess what all this means is that the majority of my frustrations for the day happen in the half an hour before work every day. And people wonder why I'm not a morning person.

Of course it happens all over again at 5pm. And people wonder why I'm a hermit.

On the plus side, I get it all over with early in the day, and only for a little while again in the evening. And if those are the worst things that happen to me all day (usually they are not but I digress) then I should consider myself very fortunate indeed.