Driving Me Crazy

Wednesday December 9th, 2009 - Chicago, IL

The white death didn’t kill us after all. The way the media made it sound, life was over as we know it. As it turns out, we did get a few inches of snow that shouldn’t have been a big deal. Too bad it was. It made driving into Chicago a total white knuckled nightmare.

Jerry Agar was filling in on the afternoon show on WGN radio today and asked us to be on for the last half hour to plug our play coming up at the Beverly Arts Center January 16 and 17. After that we were scheduled to have a rehearsal as it‘s getting to be crunch time.

We all pretty much know our lines by now, but any time we get a chance to rehearse the whole thing as a group we like to take advantage of it. Ken Sevara and Tim Slagle live on the far south side and Jerry and I are far north. That makes it a challenge to get all of us in one place at one time. Traffic today almost stopped it from happening at all. It was brutal.

Jerry told us to get in around 6:00 to relax and get situated. Getting past security can be an issue in the Tribune building so it works better to get there early and avoid the stress of having to convince the security guards we’re not terrorists looking to take radio hostages.

They can really be difficult sometimes, but that’s their job. Nobody’s angry about it, but we all know it can be an issue at any time so getting there early is important. Jerry wanted us on at 6:30 so there was a half hour cushion. I left home at 3:30 and just barely made it.

That feeling of constant stress being caught in traffic is the ultimate frustration. Nothing I could do would make the backup unclog, and all I could do was sit in my car with all my orifices clenched, hoping for a break in the delay which never happened. It took forever to inch my way into the city behind idiot after idiot who didn’t know how to drive in snow.

The cab drivers in the city are the worst. They’ll just dart in and out without a signal for the hell of it and cause everyone else to be even more stressed than they already are. They were pissing everyone off and the chorus of horns beeping was proof but they didn’t care.

I ended up getting to the studio right as the music was sounding for our segment and it’s not the first time that’s happened. The good part about that is nobody listening could care less if we’re on the air at all, so that takes the pressure off. As long as I’m able to talk into the microphone when I’m spoken to is all anyone cares about, and I did do that. Barely.

Afternoon drive time is a lot different than Saturday mornings. There’s a lot more of all the elements like news and traffic and sports and commercials. We were only on for a few minutes and then we rehearsed the play. After that we had a delicious pizza that was even more delicious because we had a gift certificate for it from a restaurant called Pizano’s.

By the time I drove Jerry home and got back to my place it was over nine hours. I don’t mind working, but most of this time was spent driving. It’s just like a road gig. I thought I was working on getting off the road. I guess I’m just making it a little bit closer to home.