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Late Start 2004-02-03, 11:38 a.m. Today is one of those days where it would be best if I could roll the clock back to 6:00 a.m. and wake up and start the day all over again. I woke up late, the kind of panicky waking up I do when I know I have an early meeting and I have to rush around to get downtown a few minutes before it begins and why oh why is there so much freaking ice on my car, and for once, could the salt trucks just get out of the way during rush hour? I managed to get downtown about fifteen minutes before my meeting was supposed to begin, which was exactly enough time to park in the garage, walk 2 blocks to my office, go through security, go through the building complex to my actual office, dump my stuff off at my desk, quickly print out the meeting agenda, and stroll in at 8:59. My employer recently changed the location of our off-site parking and the new garage is very complicated - it had several levels added to an existing structure, so the layout makes no sense at all. You'll think you've discovered an up-ramp, or think you've spotted a parking space with some adjacency to a stairwell, when it's really just a series of dead ends and turns that leads you back to where you started. I wasn't thinking, well, at all, when I pulled in this morning, and I took a wrong turn that ended up in BFE, and was the exact opposite corner of where I really wanted to be parking. I debated about whether it would be faster to try to navigate around the Mirage or to add an extra block to my hike to work. I should point out that the sidewalks here don't ever get cleaned because no one walks anywhere, and so they are now packed ice, and that the walk from this garage to my office is a steep enough hill that even the marathoners that I work with complain about it. But, as noted, I am not thinking at all, and I decide hoofing it three blocks with about eleven minutes to spare is a good idea. In the snow and ice. Uphill. So I'm lugging my new Gap.com tote (that a MATH shopping enabler found on sale) filled with files, laptop, snacks, Diet Coke, umbrella, extra mittens, magazines, notepads, and gym clothes and my purse up this three block long hill, but I have to shuffle so that I don't fall on my face and slide back down the hill on the ice. I'm sure it was comedy gold for anybody watching me. I get to the top of the hill, a little out of breath and achy from this brief workout, and I’m standing at the corner, across the street from my office waiting for the light to change so that I can cross the street when a bus comes out of nowhereand splashes dirty slushy ice all over me. My skirt is wet, my shoes are covered in this salty slush, and my new Gap.com tote has been defaced. This is when the swearing gets loud. I rushed into the building, lugging my wet, new Gap.com tote and managed to get through the complex and into my office with a few minutes to spare, planning to skip printing out the agenda so that I could wipe the slush off of my shoes and try to get some of the water out of my skirt. And wouldn’t you know, my office nemesis stopped me on my way into the conference room and let me know she had rescheduled this meeting and she was just terribly sorry for not letting me know sooner. Good lord. Yes, I could have left my apartment at a reasonable hour, or paid more attention to the traffic, but it’s just far too convenient to blame my crappy morning on her. Stupid, smirking office nemesis.
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