I have been frantically looking for the perfect gift for my father for Father's Day, and I'm running out of time! I had to go get the car serviced today, north of Boston, and I decided that I would go to a quaint specialty shop in Cambridge on my way home. It's not really on the way home, but I had to go South, so I went Southeast rather than Southwest. I should have known that something was up when the offramp for Storrow Drive heading West was backed up at noon on a Friday, but I remained blissfully unaware of the true meaning of backup until I tried to get into Cambridge.
You see, at least twice a year, Cambridge becomes a no-travel-zone for the locals - the two times a year are the day that the colleges begin their fall terms and the day they end their spring semester. Harvard and MIT exist within a few miles of one another, and they have oodles of students that are only here during the school year. Today happened to be the end of the semester for Harvard students, and I happened to pick today to go to Harvard Square to go to this shop. BIG MISTAKE. If the driving capabilities of these students and their parents are any reflection of their mental capacity, then we should all be VERY afraid (and I'm not just saying this because I went to rival Cornell). People were driving the wrong way down one-way streets, blocking intersections, and double-parking on one-lane roads. What should have been a quick trip ended up taking me 2 1/2 hours because I was TRAPPED within the maze of Harvard Square roads. I finally found a parking space and went into this great shop, and they had that PERFECT GIFT FOR MY DAD! Unfortunately just not in the size I wanted... Bummer. It was par for the course of my life lately!
I swear, the Universities should be required to take out huge print, radio and television ads to let us poor schmucks know when these traffic days from hell are going to take place so that we can avoid those areas like the PLAGUE.
Hopefully I'll find something for dad this weekend!
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