I arrived in the lobby to see a co-worker looking at the screen that shows where the shuttle is. The screen is new, and earlier in the week I had talked to Ivan about how useless it is. I checked the screen, and the shuttle was right outside! Plan seemed to be working. I walked towards the doors, but no shuttle. I looked back at the screen, which mustn't have updated in a timely fashion.
Co-worker: "I guess we just missed it..."
Me: "I guess so. Unless... no, they don't often break out the special invisible bus."
Co-worker: "Yeah... probably not today anyway."
My mind started whirring: "The 33 bus gets me closer to home, and that runs at 3 and 3:30. The 31 gets me in the right neighborhood, and it runs at 3, 3:15, 3:30 and 3:40. If there is only 1 shuttle running at the moment, then it's going to take around 20 minutes to get to the train station and back. That means I will miss the 3:15 bus, and it could cut it fine with the 3:30 bus."
Me: "I'm gonna do the walking thing."
Co-worker: "The walking thing? I think I'll wait. Have a good one!"
Me: "You too."
I pushed through the doors and started for the grass that would cut me across the courtyard at the front of the building. I looked at my watch: 3:02. I crossed the road and started thinking:
"I wonder how long it would take me to walk home?"
I've wondered it before, and I kept thinking that this might be the perfect time to find out. It's early, it's not hot and it's not cold. It's overcast, so the sun isn't too strong.
"I'm going to walk home."
I kept walking, mapping the route out in my mind. I decide on a general direction and then think about how it would have been cool to take random pictures along my walk.
"Damn lack of a working camera phone!"
Now, let me explain. Work provided me with a Blackberry around 2 years ago. The model that they gave me, the 8830, doesn't come standard with a camera. I had to install it myself.
BB Camera: can't work out if the hardware or the software is the problem...
I walked under I-95, it was 3:10.
"Is this really such a good idea? Do I really want... why do I keep seeing those 4 door Porsches (sedans) everywhere lately?" that was the first, but certainly not last, time that I would start thinking about something and then get distracted by something shiny, distinctive smelling or just plain cool.
I passed PF Changs and looked at my watch. 3:13.
"I'm making good time!" was my cheerful realization. I've walked this route before when Liz was having regular appointments at the chiropractor after her car accident last year.
My route continued past the mall and I decide to turn after the mall and head for Bedford Street. I like Bedford Street: it has a few restaurants on it and it has some life to it. It will also then be a straight shot most of the way home. I get about 50 yards away from the intersection with Bedford and the bus that I would have caught at 3:15 is going through the intersection. It feels like a defining moment for me: that bus was the last realistic alternative to walking the rest of the way home. I turned the corner, it's 3:20. The bus is further up the road, stopped at a traffic light. Some people might consider that a taunt, but I'm still determined to see this challenge through.
The first of the restaurant smells hit my nose. The "restaurant" was McDonalds. The smell though is short-lived, as I pass McDonalds and hit Remo's. Remo's is a brick oven pizza restaurant, so the smell is immensely better now that I've walked a dozen steps forward. I keep going, and within about 20 yards I get the next smell.
"Mmmmm... Lucky's...." Lucky's Classic Burger and Malt Shop smells awesome, and the smell lasts from well before the front door to well past it.
I passed a small park, looking at a sculpture of a girl sitting on a bench. "Is she holding a mirror or a lollypop? She's pretty young, it must be a big ass lollypop. Wait, now that I am closer, she's holding lipstick in the other hand. That girl is way to young looking for lipstick."
I passed the church, and behind me I heard the unmistakeable burble of a boxer engine. I turned my head slightly and saw a 2005 WRX driving past me. Black, not too dark tinted windows, tasteful wheels, no rear spoiler. It's a nice car. Then, as I watch it, it passes a parked USPS truck!!!! Jackpot! 2 nice vehicles in as many seconds.
I've never walked down this side of the road before, and it brings me closer to the cop shop (police station) than I remember being. I start to notice a pattern amongst the cruisers parked out the front. "Hehe - car 25 is parked next to car 24. Then they're pulling 23 in too." Then there's an empty spot. "It's labelled 22... well, I guess that makes sense..." The pattern continues until I reach the end of the line, which ended a few cars later. Then it was a big jump, all the way down to 10. "What?!?!" The sudden drop in numbers blew my mind. It wasn't an ordinary cruiser either - it was one of the more stealthy, unmarked cars. The funny thing about their unmarked cars is that they still have Stamford Police stickers on them, they're just the same color as the car. "I wonder why the guy parked in such an obviously wrong spot in the numbered series?" I concentrated for a second, because I had to cross the road. I turned my head, and then I saw it. "Wait - is the unmarked car in an unmarked spot? Well played, Stamford Police."
So by now it's about 3:26 or so, and I'm passing a church. They have a sign up saying that they have a free Good Friday concert at 8PM. "I wonder if Faith + 1 is playing!" For the next few minutes I have this is my head:
My walk got boring for a few minutes, and I know what you're thinking: "Got boring? Why am I even reading this?" My attention was snapped back into focus by a flashing light. It was the type you would see on the top of an old police car, like at the start of a Naked Gun movie. It was mounted to the top of a non-descript trademan style van. "Contractor... I wonder if that's a mafia van? What? Why would that be a mafia van? And why would a mafia van want to draw attention to itself?" For the next few seconds I chuckle at my own brain's stupidity.
I reached the Ridgeway, which is a shopping center. I went to cross the road, and noticed the striped crossing under my feet. Out of nowhere, a Family Guy moment struck me. For the next minute or so, as I started up the hill, my brain kept going "Left foot, right foot" in Chris Griffin's voice.
My brain often has arguments with itself, where one part of it seems to be me, and the other part deems it necessary to refer to me in the third person.
"Hills? I didn't sign up for this!"
"Don't worry, Russell. Wherever you have an uphill like this, you have downhills as well. It's like you tell yourself on hikes!"
"Yeah, but brain, hikes are round trips, I'm only walking home one way!"
"You mean those hills just before home are all going to be uphill with no accompanying downhill?"
I hit the top of the small rise and realized that the gas station/mechanic at the bottom of the hill often has a USPS truck parked there. It seems to placate both sides of my arguing brain and I walk quickly down the hill. I'm rewarded by catching a glimpse of the parked USPS truck. I look up the rise I'm starting to climb, and I spot a current model Subaru Outback waiting up ahead at a T-intersection.
"I like the Outback, but I really didn't think I would. The first Legacy I saw, it just did nothing for me. But now I like them, and I think I like the Outback even more. Hey, an old Outback just passed me. Yeah, I like the new Outback much more. Hey, look, a HomeGoods. I wonder if I could get an Outback at a price that makes me HomeGoods happy" again I find myself laughing at myself, this time at my cleverness instead. "I've been walking for too long!"
Then I catch another whiff on the air. It smells like asian food, but not particularly good asian food. "But why am I smelling it outside an American style diner? Oh, I'm downwind from Chili Chicken. Whose idea was it to do an Indian-inspired Asian restaurant? Or is it Asian-inspired Indian? I can't remember..."
Now was the time to focus: I had to make a decision. I could veer right, and take the less busy street, Oaklawn, home, or I could stay on the main road. The path naturally veered right, so I kept walking up towards Oaklawn. It has sidewalks I had never walked on: I figure I may as well get some use out of the hassles the roadwork caused while they were putting the sidewalks in... I look up while I'm on the small street, because I've seen a Red-Tailed Hawk around here on more than one occasion. No sign of it today, though.
I started down Oaklawn, and then I saw another one. Another USPS truck. This one was being driven though. The driver must have caught me looking, because he waved to me. He may have also waved because he was pulling over right where I had just walked.
At the driver's wave, a new thought starts: "You know, the people at the post office are very hit and miss; sometimes they're nice, sometimes they're just plain rude and make it seem like you being there is the biggest inconvenience in the world for them. But the guys out delivering the mail? I've never met one that wasn't a nice person. Granted, we've only had a few mail people since I moved here, but each of them that I have met has been nice. These guys are out 6 days a week, in all kinds of weather, and they're still really nice. Maybe it's because they're free, and they spend so much time outside. But winter would suck... the only constant is the truck. USPS delivery staff are nice because they get to spend so much time in those awesome trucks."
It was an epiphany.
I got to Pepper Ridge Road, and I looked at my watch for the first time in a long time. It was 3:52. "Wow! I'm going to break an hour! I'm only going to get home a few minutes later than I would have if I had caught the 3:30 bus and had minimal walk! This is awesome!!! I really need to pee! And what is that awful manure-like smell?!"
The good thoughts, desire to pee and desire to escape the smell start to propel me up the hill. About half way up my legs started to burn. I'm showing winter fitness levels right now... I looked up and saw 2 planes flying across the sky, then two other forms circling one another.
"Red-Taileds!"
I could tell they were hawks because they were flying flatter than vultures, and they weren't wobbling. Seeing the raptors buoyed my spirits and I reached the turn to our street and powered along. I checked the mail, walked up the back stairs and plonked my bag down on the deck to get my keys out.
At 3:02 I had been standing in the lobby of the office. Now, at 3:58, I was standing on the back deck. If you do the math, that's 56 minutes to walk 3.7 miles/5.92 kilometres. In winter shape I'll take that.
It might have taken me a couple of minutes longer to get home, but it gave me time to think. It also made me realize: perhaps I don't want time to think - sometimes, it gets weird.
