More Proof that I am a Jackass

This story is from a couple of years ago, but it's still funny nonetheless; so, I'll share it. It's also more proof that I can from time to time be an utter jackass. Since I take the train a great deal, the commute to work in the car for me is totally out of the norm. Driving skews my normal routine and I am totally out of my element when I do it.

As I may have mentioned before, the drive to work is approximately 25 miles. Of that time, I drive about 7 miles to the tollway, then do 17 miles of highway driving followed by a quick 2 mile ride to the office. The reason I am giving this breakdown to you will become evident shortly.

This particular day, I had an important early morning meeting and that was definitely the primary focus on my mind as I drove to work. I had just gotten onto the tollway and as luck (bad luck, as I would later find out) would have it, traffic was light that day and I smoothly ramped up to 70 miles an hour. After proceeding about 5 miles on the tollway, I suddenly heard a noise from the back seat that blasted me out of the thought stupor that I had been having about my pending workday. I quickly gave a look into the rearview mirror and what did I see, but my two children safely strapped into their car seats in the back seat. I had totally forgotten to drop them off at the day care center. Again, I am a jackass. To make matters worse, the day care center is only about 3 miles from my home. To make matter even worse, the next exit on the tollway where I could turn around and get them back to their planned destination was another 2 miles from where I was at that point.

So if you have been paying attention to the math here, I drove 11 miles past the kids day care center and then had to drive 11 miles back to drop them off. This ended up adding 22 miles to my already 25 mile commute. I guess the good thing out of this is that one of the kids made a noise in the back seat. Otherwise, I probably would have driven them all the way to the office.