I left my desk at 5:55 p.m. today to catch the bus on State Street, the one that usually gets to my stop at about 6:15. I stomped through the snow and got there at 6:10.
At 6:20, my cheeks and lips went numb.
At 6:30, my feet and hands went numb.
At 6:40, I managed to brush the equivalent of a full drift of snow off my coat.
At 6:50, I had a revelation.
At 7 o'clock, the bus arrived. I climbed in, sat down, extracted a chunk of ice from an eyelash, shook snow and ice from my hair, banged my hands together to try to get some feeling back into them, and contemplated my revelation, which was as follows:
What the hell am I doing? I'm 38 years old, still depending on an unreliable public transportation system, still freezing at the side of exhaust-gasping State Street in the middle of February. This no longer works. The time has come. I'm learning to drive. A.s.a.p.!
At 7:30, the bus crawled into Ypsilanti Transit Center, and its dispirited passengers wearily disembarked. Scott was there to collect me, thank God, and I slammed into the car and declared my revelation immediately.
I'm doing this!
The plan: written test by spring, then driving practice, then license in the summer. That's the plan.
And now it's on my blog, so I have to do it!
