One Pharmacist’s View
City Traffic
One thing that causes me happiness is that I don’t live in a large city. Sure, there are times I wish for some of the perks that come with urban living but all in all I’m used to the rural life and guess I’ll never change. All this to take my turn complaining about traffi c.
Monday morning I took my dear wife Pat to the McGee Eye Clinic in Oklahoma City. Traffi c was heavy but not impossible. We made it just fine what with my expert driving and all. Later Monday we had to swing up to Edmond to take care of some more business. That was a little bit tedious as we circled our way up there, but then again, my expert driving abilities kicked in and in spite of some right front seat help from you know who, we made it to our destination.
Breathing a sigh of relief I was ready to head back to Allen when I remembered that my poor sister was languishing in a care center out on NW 122nd and hadn’t been able to see her in a long time. Well, being unable to see her may be incorrect. I just hadn’t been to see her. So Pat and I drove out there to see how my sister Sue was getting along. By the time we arrived there it was like, past noon. I think there is a fast-food joint every city block in the Oklahoma City Metro and my taste buds and tummy were communicating and the result was my brain was screaming food. But we were already out at Sue’s place and she had just eaten. What to do? Well we dug out two packs of snack-crackers and ate them. That was it. We went in.
Later in the day, saying our goodbyes to Sue, we discussed how hungry we were. But the traffi c across Oklahoma City was horrendous. It was past 3PM. Although my hunger pangs had returned -- my desire to get out of town and perhaps eat something later...say at Shawnee was fussed about internally and Shawnee won. An hour later we sat on I-40, doing about 3.2 MPH waiting for the highway patrol to clear off a stalled truck right in the middle of the construction up there. Boy, was I hungry. You could see for miles and the trucks just weren’t moving.
“Why don’t you turn off on Choctaw and we can take another road,” she asked. I was in the far left hand lane on this 6 lane road. The exit seemed to be right there and indeed, I wondered why I didn’t do just that. But my reasoning brain said, “you’re in the left lane stupid and ain’t no way you gonna get over there.” So I compromised and didn’t. We inched on past Choctaw Road. I finally thought I would make some sort of honest effort to exit on Pebbly Road and nearly made it, but didn’t. At that moment we got past the staled truck and breezed on toward Shawnee and the Chicken Galore Place. Or whatever they call it. It was delicious.
Luckily, we were able to listen to the radio all those hours driving home. The impeachment dominated the talk so I finally switched to something else. Later this week we’ll find our way to Tulsa for another adventure in the world of modern medicine. Yes, two more doctor appointments to see about for Pat up there. But I’m not worried about Tulsa. Traffic is a breeze up there. Not to worry.
Meanwhile, let me wish all my readers a good weekend and I hope all of you get to go to church Sunday. And I love to hear from my readers. Usually.
Wayne Bullard, DPh