Wednesday, May 5, 2010

I'm home!

Yes, I am home. Oh blessed home.

Robert arrived in Montreal by train on Monday night. Poor guy. He helped me move to Montreal three years ago (2 trips in the Subaru Forrester, so crammed full of stuff that it was threatening to expl0de its contents all over the 401) and endured a most hellish trip to Ikea with me. Honestly Ikea, why is your one location in Montreal in the ass-end of nowhere, accessible only from the madness that is Autoroute 40?

Tuesday was spent eating delicious pizzar from Amelio's and packing up all of my stuff. Robert did most of the bulk closet and kitchen packing while I did the cleaning and the little finicky stuff.

We woke up around 7 on Wednesday morning so that we could drag our sleepy butts to the U-Haul location in the east end of Montreal instead of the one at Pont Jacques Cartier. So much for your promise of giving me the most convenient location, U-Haul. We got there by 9am, as planned, picked up the cargo van and Robert drove it back to the apartment ever so carefully. He had back pains, so he couldn't turn around completely to look out the back and lack of windows made it impossible for him to check the blind spot on his right side. That made the drive through downtown Montreal FUN. TIMES.

We had everything packed in the van by 11:30am and then we had the fun task of making our way through the other half of downtown Montreal to get on the 20. At one point, a cyclist ran a red light as we were crossing the intersection and gave us a mini heart attack. I may have called him a son of a bitch. I don't tend to use that term as an insult towards a specific person, so I don't know what my exact feelings were at the time. The way he was zipping through Ste-Catherine indicated to me that he clearly had a death wish and we would not have been at fault if we had run him over. However, I would have been obliged to help him after turning his sorry ass into road goo since we were still in Quebec. But if I were muttering all kinds of mean things while doing chest compressions, could anyone reproach me for that? I don't think so. Damn cyclists.

Things went smoothly enough after that. We stopped at a St-Hubert in Dorion just outside of Montreal for brunch and the 401 moved along nice and smoothly. Until we were a few kilometres away from Kingston. The traffic slowed to a crawl and Robert estimates that it took us about 40 minutes to move 2 km. The thing about U-Hauls is that there's only an FM-AM radio. Robert had his Ipod, but I had forgotten to charge my Zune. I thought I was going crazy with boredom. Thankfully, Robert's laptop was fully charged and he had his external hard drive full of Scrubs episodes. I watched about 5 episodes while composing the following.

5:13pm - Robert and I have been stuck on the 401 for the past 2 hours now. From what I can tell, we are just outside of Kingston. The 401 is closed. No explanation has been given. We have moved approximately 2km in 40 minutes. Robert says that the 401 better have collapsed if there is all this fuss. I can only surmise that there is a possible zombie uprising up ahead. In which case, we're pretty screwed, because the only food supply that we have with us in the U-haul cargo van is a package of ramen, 3 servings of uncooked flour noodles and a ziploc baggie of dried anchovies used to make fish stock. And I have finished the box of Junior Mints that I bought in Montreal. We have no water. To either side is a densely forested area and we have no viable weapons. We are in the worst case possible situation for a zombie outbreak. At this point, it would be just easier to get our butts bitten by zombies and join the winning side. If our zombie selves somehow make the 300+km trip back to Toronto and bite your butts, just remember that we only did what we could.

5:24pm - If I become a zombie, the first people I'm biting are smokers. Robert doesn't mind smokers, but hates people who throw their cigarette butts everywhere. Just saw a man jump out of his idling SUV and head off into the bushes. Thought he had mysteriously received news of the zombie outbreak and was abandoning his car to take his chance in the wilderness until Robert pointed out that he probably just had to pee. Am rather glad of the fact that am thirsty and not in need of relieving my bladder. Robert has taken to reading a book during the 20 minute intervals between inching forward.

5:31pm - If there is a zombie uprising and if I do end up surviving this traffic nightmare of 401 with some kind of weapon, I would want the soundtrack of my zombie mercy killings to be Knights of Cydonia. It would be kickass. Thought: Why am I so into zombies lately?

5:48pm - Seem to be moving ahead at about 70km/h all of a sudden. Robert is very perplexed. I would come up with some kind of zombie-related reason for this, but am strangely unable to muster enough crazy at the moment. As soon as the above was written, the traffic has slowed back down. Actually saw two cars ENTER the 401. Poor suckers.

The signs later informed us that the 401 had been reduced to one lane for 7km, because they were working on expanding the highway. So avoid the 401 around Kingston this summer at all costs. Once we got past Kingston, everything was smooth sailing again. We got to Toronto around 9-ish and got off the 401 at the Bathurst exit. The thing about Bathurst and 401 is that you can't get off directly onto Bathurst from the 401. You get off on Wilson and that takes you to Bathurst. We got on Bathurst and drove. It was taking longer to get to Finch than I thought. I distinctly remember saying, "St. Clair is after Lawrence, right?" but I must have been too tired because I didn't register at all what that was implying. It was only when I saw the huge red and yellow sign for Honest Ed's that I screamed, "We're at Bloor! We're at Bloor!" It was UNBELIEVABLE. Does this happen to everyone or is it just me? It seems like whenever I go on a road trip, some crazy thing happens and I end up spending the night in the back of the car or unpackaging a headboard in the middle of the Ikea parking lot at 10pm. We finally got to Robert's house (we weren't in any shape to unpack any luggage, oh no) and just crashed. This experience has thoroughly ruined my desire to move anywhere more than say, 50km away. But it makes for a crazy story, no?

Plus, I'm home. That's always awesome.

3 comments:

julie said...

One night, a few months ago, I found myself sleepless and my mind was racing. The debate of the night: If zombies were to suddenly rampage through Orleans, where should Randal, the dog and I hole up? The second-floor bedroom? Or would the back room of our basement be better, despite the presence of a small window? The laundry room has no window, on the other hand, but the door between it and the rest of the basement is pretty flimsy. Or maybe we'd be best off making a run for our car and hightailing it out of there. Which partially explains why I start to get very nervous whenever the car starts to get low on gas. You can't get very far on just a quarter-tank.

julie said...

I asked Randal about this last night, and he said that no, when there is a zombie breakout, you must not hole up somewhere private, but head for a public place, like a mall (Dawn of the Dead, anyone?). Safety in numbers, I guess. Anyway, can I borrow your zombie survival guide, if you are done with it? I obviously still have a lot to learn.

Ladyjutea said...

According to the survival guide, an apartment building is best, but you can always move all your stores upstairs and then destroy the staircase. I'll lend it to you when you come~~~!!! I hope I don't have to work that weekend. *cross fingers*