Last night it took me about a half a hour longer to get to the Tempe Improv because every single road anywhere near the club was closed, including the freeway. I raged and eventually got there.
I'm leaving, after the second show and it's almost midnight. On an typical night, I'm in bed by ten. When I have a comedy job and there is two shows I am up much later which can be a struggle stay alert, but I make it and begin my 45 minute drive home.
The construction was overwhelming. Cones and wooden barricades and orange flashing lights everywhere. I see an arrow, move to this lane, another arrow, not that lane, that lane is closed, another arrow, hey come over here, just fucking with you, this lane is also closed. I have to get on the freeway and there is blinking orange activity there as well. BUT, there are two cones by the on ramp separated just the exact size of, well, a car. They were separated the exact distance as the size of a Jetta, my car.
So, I enter the ramp and I finally feel calm because I am away from all the construction. I am apparently smarter than the other drivers. I enter the freeway and it dawns on me that the freeway seems to be really quiet which is odd because it's midnight on a Saturday. Then I notice another interesting thing. It is not only very quiet on the freeway, I am actually the only person on the freeway. I look in my rear view mirror, I'm looking out the windows, just darkness, and, me. Now the panic attack begins. I am driving on a closed freeway. I'm thinking, "What about the cones? They were spaced just enough for a Jetta?" The cones deceived me. Cones lie all the time. You know how you can tell if a cone is lying? Their lips are moving.
Okay, so, I am going to prison, this is what I'm thinking. But I'm still driving because there is no way off, no other ramps, there is no way out. I look up ahead and I see there is a wooden barricade lit up with orange flashing lights ahead and it is heavily spread all the way across every lane of the freeway. So I slow down, slow down more, until I am stopped, on the freeway with my lights on the barricade, alone. Because, of the spacing of the cones.
I am now in full hyperventilation mode. I think, quickly Dina! Turn the car around and speed back to the ramp where the whole thing started. But then I would be going the wrong way on the closed freeway. I would be illegal, on top of illegal. Is it more illegal to drive backwards or drive the wrong way? I don't know. Which story do you want to tell the judge? So I immediately put the car in reverse and drive backwards for several miles. I'm doing everything in my power to drive cautiously as to not attract attention and yes, I'm driving backwards but, I'm doing a good job. I think I may get time off my sentence if I could say, "I was driving very careful and I was staying in the lines and I understand that I was driving backwards but my car was actually facing the correct direction." You know, maybe they would be more supportive of me in court.
I get to the ramp and back my way down, get to the cones and very carefully back through the little fuckers, I back my way out. And then I began to drive the way the other cars were going, hundreds of cars, which by coincidence, were all going the same way, a completely different direction than I had previously gone. I was apparently the only one that was sucked into the cones, screaming 'Come this way! These people are stupid! You are the smart one! And your car is the perfect size!'
After I was with the others, I began to laugh so hard tears were falling down my face. I called anyone that I thought would be awake. I did not get anyone on the phone. I laughed the entire way home.
The moral of the story is this. They say, 'trust your gut'. I say, 'Do NOT trust your gut.' AND do not trust the cones that a guy in a city truck threw out his window at the entrance of the closed freeway because he is in a hurry to go to go see Avatar. How far apart were the cones? The exact size of a Jetta. My car.
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