not-so-sticky

When half of your life is spent as a corporate lackey and the other half of your life is spent as a caregiver, you have no time to spare. You have to take the fun where you can get it. Even lunch at the cafeteria can seem fun... So even though the commute is terrifying, the carpool has become more of a social club. Whoever is driving needs to be kept awake and entertained. Therefore, passengers are under a certain obligation to perform. The carpool line-up was going to be a bit different this afternoon. Kyrce had rehearsal and wasn't returning to Kingston right after work. So the Intern (she gave me permission to use her name, but I enjoy referring to her as 'the Intern'...) had parked her car in the morning at the Wal-Mart ( cringe shudder ) in Monroe. She had some trouble getting there, having made a wrong turn along the way. Monroe looked terribly confusing to me. I couldn't imagine driving through there myself, and actually navigating to a 'real' destination...

I have never developed a love for driving. In fact, over the years I have become absolutely terrified of driving to the point of staying awake thinking about the drive I'd have to make in the morning. So you can imagine how thrilled I was when my job was relocated from Kingston, New York in which I lived in walking distance from my office to Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Until I hit 30, I had happily survived without a car of my own. I'm not saying that this was not an inconvenience at many times. 10 years ago now but as still clear in my reflection is a memory of dragging a reluctant Seth across downtown Albany from the Price Chopper on Madison Avenue to our 7th floor State Street apartment, lugging large canvas bags of groceries over each shoulder, occasionally switching the hand that was holding Seth's with the hand that was holding plastic bags of groceries that didn't fit in the canvas and was cutting off circulation to my fingers. And it seems like yesterday, th...