Aarghhh!

My office is only about 5 miles away from my house on the same major road (I live on Thomas & Hayden and work on Thomas & 44th). With morning traffic, I can usually get to work in 10-15 minutes. My current assignment has me working in downtown Phoenix a few days a week. Traffic in Phoenix is horrid, particularly when headed to downtown. Fortunately I live right by a freeway on ramp so it doesn't take long to get on the freeway, but I have to leave my house by 7 or 7:10 (at the latest) or else I spend at least 15-20 extra minutes on the freeway. Today I had to work downtown, but I was running a little late and didn't get on the freeway until about 7:20. To get to work I take the 101 South about 2 miles to the 202 and take that straight into downtown Phoenix. As I was approaching the 202 interchange this morning, I noticed 3 things at about the same time: (1) My gas light came on (I suddenly realized that thanks to a pressing Relief Society need, I forgot to get gas last night), (2) the line to get onto the 202 was MUCH longer than it should have been, and (3) I could see the 202 in front of me and it was pretty much a parking lot. I got in the line to merge and immediately heard there was a car wreck on the 202 about 3 miles from the interchange. At that point the only think I could do was pray that I wouldn't run out of gas on the freeway in traffic, as the next exit was about 1 mile away. For the next 20 minutes or so (yes, it took me 20 minutes to go 1 1/4 mile), I watched the gas needle slowly sink closer and closer to the dreaded dark line until I finally made it to the first exit. I assumed that there would be a gas station right off the freeway so I could gas up and go. See, that's one of the peculiarities of Phoenix. For some reason, there are seldom gas stations right off freeway exits. Anyway, I finally found a gas station and filled up. My car takes 15 gallons, and I put 14.5 gallons in the car. It was a much closer call than I thought! After filling up I took surface streets for a few miles to avoid the traffic jam on the freeway. Of course, I was joined by roughly half the motorists in Tempe, so it much longer than expected. I guess the bright side to all of this is that once I got back on the freeway, most of the traffic was still stuck several miles back, so it was pretty much smooth sailing all they way downtown. All told, my 25-30 minute commute took me nearly 1 hour 15 minutes this morning. One of the joys of American life - traffic jams. What a way to start the day!