My week of driving the hybrid is over with; I picked David up at the airport tonight after work. It’s been a long week of watching season premieres with nobody to talk to except the cat.

David’s technical conference was a big success as far as he’s concerned, as he connected with a lot of people and got a fair amount of recognition. I coped with driving to O’Hare to get him this evening after work, and waited in O’Hare’s new “cell phone lot” until he got his bags and called to tell me which “vestibule number” he’d wait at for a pickup. What a joke!

The “Lot” is just a little section of an underused remote lot, over by the City of Chicago Streets and Sanitation Impound Yard. It’s small, barely paved, and doesn’t offer anything in the way of amenities other than a lot of hastily erected signage. There’s a tiny train station there I never knew about – it was marked “O’Hare Transfer” and appeared to be a Metra station. I was picturing something like the cell phone lot in Salt Lake
– yes, provincial, backward Shit Lake Salty has a huge cell phone lot with a bunch of big flight arrival display boards, so you can sit in your car and watch for your traveler’s flight to be logged in as “landing,” “taxiing,” or “ready for pickup.” Me, I got to sit in a half-assed remote lot looking at the Porta-Potty in the corner and wondering if I had time and courage enough to check it out.

I was relieved to see David pop up from behind a support pillar as I neared the “vestibule” pickup point. Traffic was bad, and I did not want to have to go around again, as a transit cop was right there screaming at some people through his PA to get their asses moving. They kept loading and loading stuff, and jabbering away unconcernedly, while the cop was about ready to pop a vein. Earlier in the week, I was here going nuts at work, and relaxing with the TV and playing with the cat were my big accomplishments
for the week. And driving the hybrid to and from work, enjoying the pleasures of staying in electric mode as much as possible in low-speed situations, like parking lots. It’s an absurdly fun game, driving slowly. And very relaxing.

Speaking of which, time to relax some more. With my hubby!