Up there in the list of miserable experiences

Yesterday my last class was from 3-4:20. At 4:25 I went down to daycare. Xander was napping. I wanted him to sleep as long as possible, so I hung out at school checking email until 5. I got him up, put him in the car, and assumed we'd be home in our usual 15-20 minutes. Then we would eat dinner, play, I'd change into nice clothes, and I'd go to temple to teach adult ed from 7-8pm.

For some strange reason traffic was terrible, and it took me almost 20 minutes to get to the freeway. I had just entered the on-ramp when I saw why: the freeway was a parking lot. Literally, not moving at all. A sea of red lights. This is usual in LA, but not in Ohio. By this point I couldn't back up since there were cars behind me, so I figured I would just wait it out and get off at the next exit, 1.8 miles away.

15 minutes later, still on the on-ramp, I called Jonathan to tell him to hold dinner. Jonathan went online and told me that there was a terrible accident of some sort and the freeway was closed four exits up.

20 minutes after that, in the merge lane, I called Jonathan again to tell him that this really sucked, and that I had sung all the songs I knew to Xander, who was being very very patient and was only whining a little.

10 minutes following that, the boy was screaming his head off in the backseat - DINNER, MOMMY, NOW!!!! - and I still was not fully on the freeway. I called Jonathan back so that he could please call the temple educator and tell her I might be late for class. As Jonathan was on the phone with me the other line rang. He put me on hold, and when he came back he told me that it was one of my adult students, who had heard a traffic report and was warning me not to get on the freeway.

It took me over two hours to go those two miles. When I finally pulled off at the exit, Xander was hot and sweaty from screaming so hard. I nursed him, let him play with my phone, and fed him an oatmeal cookie that I found buried in my backpack (he didn't really care how long it had been there, and neither did I). Unfortunately I had to put him back in the carseat to go the rest of the way home, and the screaming resumed.

Everyone was doing the same thing I was, and the streets were so backed up it took another 25 minutes to go .7 miles. I completely missed my class. Xander got tired of screaming so reverted back to babble. We finally got home and had dinner about a half hour past Xander's usual bedtime. I was ready to cry.

All in all, let's just say that I've had better commutes.