Day Four - Why Sunday is different

For most of the working world, Sunday is the "last hurrah" of the weekend, and thus a very busy day for vineyard tasting rooms. This morning, as I finished the last swallow from my cup of coffee and kissed my husband goodbye, jumping into my little orange pickup truck with one of my Harry Potter books on CD already in the stereo, I really had no idea what lay ahead of me on my trip to work.

In a nutshell, what I found was that the drive from my house to the Long Island Expressway was completely smooth and uncluttered. Most people in my hometown party pretty hearty on Saturday nights, and sleep well through the earlier hours of Sunday morning. All the lights were green, and it was smooth sailing on the highway - all the way out to my exit.

However, once I got off the highway and onto the lovely and scenic two-lane roads that take me all the way to the vineyard, this is what I was looking at:


Yes...

All.

The.

Way.

To.

The.

Vineyard.

I kept hoping against hope that the truck (which was green, and a lot less attractive than the fancy-chromy one pictured here) would make a turn (either right or left, I wasn't being picky) at SOME POINT, allowing me to get somewhere within range of the posted speed limit, which is 45 mph. I was lucky to get anywhere past 35 with this behemoth in front of me.

One brave fool driving behind me decided he was going to get ahead in life and blew past me at the first opportunity, only to get stuck directly behind the tanker truck for the rest of his journey. One step forward, two steps back.

Whether it was sheer luck, or, more likely, my brilliant travel planning, I still managed to arrive at work ten minutes early, time-sucking tanker truck notwithstanding. I worked a full and glorious day, pouring wines for scads of people trying to eke the last drop of enjoyment out of the weekend, and at 6:30pm I finally threw my tired bones into my truck to head for home.

Except... what did I find? My regular route home, which I am usually able to navigate at the posted speed limit without obstruction save the occasional last-minute farmstand hopper, had suddenly become an interminable caterpillar of slow-moving vehicles. Head to tail, head to tail they crawled - SUVs, Jaguars, Porsches, Volvos, all going as slowly as possible, perhaps in the hopes that they could slow time itself by driving slowly, thereby putting off the coming week.

But HEY! Tomorrow is a holiday for the rest of the world (not for me, I am working a full day!), so what have they got to drag their tires about? I know not. What I do know is that the sluggish traffic didn't just affect the two-lane roads, but even the highway. At one point all three lanes of the L.I.E. were crawling along at 30mph, and I nearly wept.



My feet are so sore at the end of the nine-hour day that they literally pulsate. Just pressing down on the brakes and gas causes me to flinch, and I really just wanted to get home already.

Alas, it was not to be. It took me over an hour to get home this evening, and I felt every minute of it.

And now I see how very different Sundays can be, depending on what you do for a living, and where you do it!