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revdorothyl at 11:04am on 26/12/2004
revdorothyl at 11:04am on 26/12/2004[obscure reference to John Astin's recurring role on "Night Court", for those whose memories go back that far]
After sleeping twelve hours straight on Friday night, I was back to something resembling normal on Christmas morning, and Brother was feeling much more human, too.
At the time we were stuck in the endless parking lot that I-65 seemed to have become, my brother wondered if perhaps we had both been killed on the road and were now in some Dante-esque circle of Hell. Perhaps we had been condemned to endless encores of the excruciatingly bad show my brother dubbed "Southern Sh**heads on Ice" (no offense intended to Southerners who DO know how to drive in winter conditions, or who have the good sense to stay off the road without four-wheel-drive).
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superplin likened our experience to being trapped in an endless "Mummy hand time loop", which is also a pretty apt description.
However, perhaps the best and most accurate metaphor was provided by a friend of my brother's, who called the whole trip our Odyssey.
Brother had been feeling rather picked on by God, when the traffic disasters seemed to follow him, rather than following anything resembling a logical or predictable pattern. The storm itself might be Neptune, the vengeful entity seemingly determined to keep us from reaching home. The sleeping truck drivers who continued to block our path even after the obstructing vehicles had been removed might be analogous to the lotus-eaters. And the role of Circe was played by the Interstate highway itself, which kept luring us in with its false promises of an open road and faster travel (and kept lulling other drivers into a false sense of security, which encouraged them to drive too fast and cause accident after accident).
The only question left, then, is who was playing the role of Athena? I thought it might be me (being so wise, and all), but then again, I suspect that it was the over-worked and under-staffed sheriffs and police who kept trying to clear up mess after mess, and yet who responded patiently and politely to every one of my brother's inquiring phone calls. I think that leaves me in the role of Penelope, then -- the reason for Brother making that trip in the first place, trying (in this case) to bring Penelope home, rather than to get home to Penelope. Or maybe that makes me Helen of Troy, the reason Odysseus left home in the first place? Not sure. Need to re-read The Odyssey, I guess.
After sleeping twelve hours straight on Friday night, I was back to something resembling normal on Christmas morning, and Brother was feeling much more human, too.
At the time we were stuck in the endless parking lot that I-65 seemed to have become, my brother wondered if perhaps we had both been killed on the road and were now in some Dante-esque circle of Hell. Perhaps we had been condemned to endless encores of the excruciatingly bad show my brother dubbed "Southern Sh**heads on Ice" (no offense intended to Southerners who DO know how to drive in winter conditions, or who have the good sense to stay off the road without four-wheel-drive).
superplin likened our experience to being trapped in an endless "Mummy hand time loop", which is also a pretty apt description. However, perhaps the best and most accurate metaphor was provided by a friend of my brother's, who called the whole trip our Odyssey.
Brother had been feeling rather picked on by God, when the traffic disasters seemed to follow him, rather than following anything resembling a logical or predictable pattern. The storm itself might be Neptune, the vengeful entity seemingly determined to keep us from reaching home. The sleeping truck drivers who continued to block our path even after the obstructing vehicles had been removed might be analogous to the lotus-eaters. And the role of Circe was played by the Interstate highway itself, which kept luring us in with its false promises of an open road and faster travel (and kept lulling other drivers into a false sense of security, which encouraged them to drive too fast and cause accident after accident).
The only question left, then, is who was playing the role of Athena? I thought it might be me (being so wise, and all), but then again, I suspect that it was the over-worked and under-staffed sheriffs and police who kept trying to clear up mess after mess, and yet who responded patiently and politely to every one of my brother's inquiring phone calls. I think that leaves me in the role of Penelope, then -- the reason for Brother making that trip in the first place, trying (in this case) to bring Penelope home, rather than to get home to Penelope. Or maybe that makes me Helen of Troy, the reason Odysseus left home in the first place? Not sure. Need to re-read The Odyssey, I guess.
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