Unfortunately, I have a sad story to tell today. If you are a road worn commuter ...stick around for the first part at least......
If you are an animal lover or just extra sensitive to the plight of the helpless.. you may want to opt out of this one.
Also I get off on a few tangents...whatever .... I'm having a beer.
(I'm just sayin....)can't say I didn't warn you
Today was like any other day.. I took the "Indiana" tRoll road to work .I drive to my day job (one exit to the next exit) and live so close to it that I can hear it most of the time. In fact if my road would keep going it would t-bone smack into it. My towns exit is so close that It should me MY EXIT.
Hell it would even be a good job. No one is usually attending the booth itself, instead inside the buiding doing god knows what ( I would be hand sewing certainly) at 530 in the am.
Or... answereing the many many calls of the distressed commuters who CAN NOT GET THE SELF SERVICE MACHINE TO TAKE THEIR FREAKIN CARD
OR just deciding not to show up at all ( or having their hours cut) and let the distressed motorist make the call on whether to keep trying to pay or do the drive and dash.
I do need to mention that the "Indiana" tRoll road was indeed SOLD by our gov. Mitch Daniels to an AUSTRALIAN / SPANISH conglomerate. Now since it's practically in my yard I took offense to this and wander why they can't hire someone( Spanish? or just could be Hispanic? or have at least SEEN the movie "Australia" )to at least be there to help with the stupid machine..I mean we have some JOBLESS HERE IN indiana
But wait a minute....MAYBE this is a conspiracy to get EVERYONE TO SIGN UP FOR I-ZOOM..... you know I thought about that... but thay had a 40$ minimum..... which is how many bags of dog or catfood ?( actually only one of the good stuff).
Lets see.......I work 4 days a week 50 cents per trip....
OK here comes the math part... 7 - 4 + 3 = 530 am divided by 1994 piece O shit truck that was totaled by a willow tree in my driveway @70 mphMPH ummmmmmmmm .....yup 4 $ a week!!!!!
Well.... I cant afford $36 to be sitting idle in some Spanish/ Australian conglomerate
slush fund when cats and dogs are hungry around here.........besides I wasn't going to commit to having another electronic online account that had automatic withdrawal from my checking account THAT I HAVE TO BABYSIT to make sure the Australians and Spanish arent buying Vegimite and Bullfighting pants willy-nilly.
AND MY LUCK would be just as soon as I got the damn thing set up and activated I would lose my job...( no need for the tRoll road now...AND Damn I sure could use that $36 right now for gas $ to drive to the unemployment office and the liquor store!!!)
Today I had less than the dollar needed to get me the round trip ride and I didn't think twice about it until I GOT TO THE TOOL BOOTH this am( it's @ 5:50 mind you) and both lanes were SELF SERVE /I-ZOOM... odd...... ??
OK .....so I pick the outside one that has enough room to go around the gate ( backup plan cause 85% of the time the machine DOES NOT WORK PEOPLE)
but.......I have noticed sometimes there is no gate ( probably SMASHED by an irate driver??) or they ( Spanish /Australian Toll Road Gang) have in fact acknowledged yet another operational failure and have surrendered the white flag.
OF COURSE the damn machine will not take my ticket ( I should be used to this and I have verbally tutored many a motorist ahead of me) so I give it the 2 trys my policy allows and proceed to push the call button which USUALLY contacts the person in the office hand sewing or whatever and they manually allow the machine to function properly so it can indeed take my 50 cents and I'm (finally ) on my way to be yet again delayed by the electronic security reader that wont let me into the door,BUT I've got that TIMECLOCK mastered....I don't even bother to swipe...I punch in my employee # no messin around...
ANYWAY this morning as luck would have it after pushing the call button my card was finally accepted (17 tries), I pay my toll, the phone was still ringing and as I drive away I see there WAS NO ONE AT ALL ANYWHERE.. the office building was completely dark.
I think that was when it hit me and I had made up my mind that I had had enough of this so called convenience at this bargain price and I was going to take the long and winding roads to and from work ( well OK unless the snow was really bad) besides I din't have the 50 cents required for the trip home.
Now I could have borrowed the QUARTER needed, but this was a matter of principle. Today I was going to have to try and blaze my trail home on the country roads from this day forward.
For I was a woman of principle , who had reached the end of her tolerance for the abuse handed down by Spanish/ Australian conglomerate via the "Indiana" toll road.
My day was my typical 10 hour day on my feet ( with the exception of 2 fifteen minute breaks and half an hour lunch) .
I'm trying my best to ignore the co-worker who has a constant live feed from her brain cell to her mouth and thankfully the estrogen circus was at a steady but manageable flow.
Generally everyone was leaving me alone to do my job and I wasnt too concerned about trying to remember the alternate path home. I had driven different versions of it several times earlier this fall and have a pretty good sense of direction in general anyway.
Blame it on the frozen landscape or the icy roads or my energy level finally hitting the wall, but I must have missed a turn and ended up taking the longer way home ( more than 2 times longer). I must say at this point that there is no direct or quick way using the back roads option.
So you can see why I have enjoyed the toll roads very direct path at 530 am in the dark just barely awake semi-auto pilot option.
But tonight it was just starting to get dark after 430 and I was FINALLY turning on my road @ after 530 ( the OPPOSITE end OF MY ROAD however) and I see what appears to be a dark kitten crouched down on the light pavement near the side of the road which is bordered by 2 foot of snow.
Naturally I am concerned and immediately decide to turn around wondering why it isn't running istead of sitting like its hunched on a chair. I must have thought that it wasn't a Feral cat or that something was wrong with it( lost and confused but used to vehicles??) because it was sitting still. I check my rearview and see a vehicle coming a ways behind me after I drive into the otherlane avoiding the still crouched cat .I then do a 3 point turn in the middle of my road and as I'm turning around to change direction TO COME BACK TO THE CAT I signal to the vehicle that is now coming upon the kitten with my headlights
OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON SUPID ASS SLOW DOWN FOR CRIPE SAKE OFF ON OFF ON OFF ON
OH MY GOD HE DIDN'T EVEN SLOW DOWN and I held my breath and prayed that the kitten passed under the truck between the space avoiding the tires....I felt my breath and heart stop .... but it was too late.
The kitten died instantly and was thrown intact on the snow beside the road.
Maybe I was in shock or more likely wanting to prevent the inevitable road pizza I have witnessed too numerable times to count;I got out of my truck and picked the kitten up and put her in the back of my truck. As I proceeded to drive towards my
house , the truck who hit the cat slowed down as did I, and asked what was wrong?
I said " you ran over the Kitty" and he replied without concern "but I swerved" and I can't remember what I mumbled as I drove off thinking I had kept my self control pretty well and hadn't my cell phone gone off??( doug wondering where I was) at some point and now it was a blur as I was almost home.
I was upset and confused and decided to go back and check the closest neighbors to see if the cat belonged to one of them. I talked to one but it wasn't theirs and they suggested it may belong to the well kept farm that sat way back from the road. I drove up the long driveway and thought I saw cat tracks in the snow, but couldn't get an answer at the door. I drove back to the road and placed the cat by the road and near their mailbox so someone could see it from the road driving by , in case it didn't belong to the farm.
I came back home and sat here convincing and tormenting myself that I had been there for a reason( considering my untypical route home) and tormented myself with other options i could have taken to prevent this (or future) tragic occurance but decided any other possibility would have been dangerous or even illegal. (Small lost kitten plus farmgirl VS speeding man in truck) Not good.
I took a long hot shower and had my last beer and damn good cry and came up with the only thing that I could put together that made sense.
I guess I was there to remove the cat's body out of traffics way and to hopefully help the owners find it and just maybe if you choose to believe in such things....
........ there is one more kitten in heaven for the children to play with.
