The phrase "a perfect storm" is your basic hackneyed cliche, but sometimes such hackneyed cliches clearly express precisely what one is trying to communicate. With that preamble out of the way, let me say this: Ottawa was hit with a Perfect Storm of Shittitude this week, courtesy of the local transit union, our astonishingly incompetent city government, and—who else—Mother Nature.
First came the literal storm. Yet another Snowpocalypse. About 2 feet of snow fell over 24 hours on Tuesday, producing gridlock across the region. My commute home, which normally takes 15 minutes, tops, took 1.5 hours. Miserable. Also, freezing. But the huge snow dump was merely the preamble to the week's real excitement: The Transit Strike!
The first time I heard that a strike was even a possibility was on my (short, pleasant) drive home Monday. "Hmmm," I thought after I heard the report on the radio, "I'm glad I don't rely on the bus. A strike is going to be a real problem for people who take the bus to work. People like...Dammit! OUR NANNY! Our nanny takes the bus to work! Aaaahhhhh!!!!!!" How will she get to our place with no bus service? Nanny M doesn't even have a driver's license, let alone a car. She lives too far away to walk, and cabs would cost way too much. There's only one solution, Yep--if we want childcare during a bus strike, we have to pick her up at her place and take her home at the end of the day.
Under normal conditions, that round trip would take about 20 minutes. But under current conditions, i.e. mondo snow, and everyone who normally takes a bus cramming a car onto the road or skidding along on a bike to get downtown in the morning, it takes an hour. So Tom's been leaving the house for an hour in the morning to go get her, and I try to juggle the tasks of getting myself ready for work while watching the kids. And then it's my turn to drive around in this mess. It was much better today, but man, you would not believe what the streets were like on Wednesday. I've never seen gridlock like it here. Sure, it was like an average rush hour in a real city, but here, you just don't expect it. So many extra cars on the road. Plus, the snowbanks are huge, and not all the roads were even plowed.
And that's where the city's incompetence comes into play. The budget has been so mismanaged for so long that there is no money left for snow removal this year. Obviously, it gets done, but they triage the work so that only the main thoroughfares get cleared in a timely manner. Residential streets don't get plowed until long after the storm has passed. When I came home from work on Wednesday evening, nearly 24 hours after the bulk of the storm had passed, our street still had not been plowed. I got stuck in the rutted, churned-up snow repeatedly before I could get home to pick up the nanny and get back into the gridlock to take her home.
So, bah humbug. I'm in a foul mood these days. My resolve to have a better attitude about winter this season is broken already. At least we're getting out of here in a couple weeks for a nice respite in sunny California. Yes, they have traffic out the wazzu in the Bay Area, but at least snow isn't a factor. And let's hope there's no big strike going on during our visit.
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2 comments:
At least you don't work at Circuit City anymore? Wow, and you thought the Virginia heat was horrible! :)
Yes, but I thought the short, mild Virginia winter was AWESOME!
Also, you don't have to shovel heat. That puts it way down on the irritation scale.
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