Went Up to Boston

Google Maps - Street view

The DIL and the grandkids flew out of Logan last night.

So rather than writing a blog post, I was occupied in transporting them from my AO* to the airport.

We made it with time to spare, but the Ted Williams Tunnel was something of an adventure.

While traffic in and out of Boston in the late afternoon is always a bit dicey, yesterday things did not go too badly. Until we got to the tunnel.

While grandson Big O was continually pointing out his absolute need to take a leak "RIGHT NOW!" - granddaughter The Owl was being most well-behaved for a two year old who has been strapped into a car seat for over an hour.

Then we hit the tunnel.

Big O was now calling an "in transit emergency" and indicated that, while he had no desire to do so, he was in imminent danger of soiling his trousers.

The Owl began a plaintive wail as traffic in the tunnel ground to a halt.

As for myself, I sat calmly in the driver's seat, calmly saying to myself "serenity now, serenity now."

It did not work for Frank Costanza. It did not work for me.

That's when The DIL introduced The Big O to the concept of peeing in a bottle (a skill which will be useful for him should he ever join the military).

That emergency having been contained, we now only had a screaming two-year old and a thoroughly contaminated water bottle to deal with.

Traffic began to slowly move ahead.

Now in the tunnel (at first) there are two lanes. The leftmost takes you to Logan, the rightmost takes you to Southie (South Boston). Guess which lane was not moving?

Yup, the one we were in. The one going to Logan. Whereas the Southie lane was moving along with great alacrity.

As we moved forward, we discovered why our lane was so slow.

Now I'm not going to say that the people who drive in Boston are assholes.

No. I'm not going to say that.

But when you have one lane which is being used by people to zip to the front of the line and then have those same people expect someone to let them cut ahead of them to get into your lane, it gives one pause. Are those people cutting the line really assholes? Or simply uncultured knuckleheads who don't know any better? I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

There was this guy twenty yards behind me who finally made a stand.

I heard many horns blowing and looked into the rear view mirror to see what was amiss.

There was a car straddling both lanes, allowing no one to get past him. The people behind him were somewhat displeased I gathered.

I pictured this dude, sitting in his car, gripping his steering wheel, eyes focused dead ahead, muttering to himself:

"They shall not pass!"

Yes, the drive to Boston is always fun.

Not.




*AO = Area of Operations