126 sleeps

Just because it's green doesn't mean you can go!

One thing that drives me absolutely batsh*t crazy about Cape Town is the Traffic Department’s inability to coordinate (synthesize? calibrate?) the street lights. How hard is it to make sure 4 lights on a stretch of 30 meters of road work in synch?

I trained on Saturday afternoon in the blistering heat (ideal for maximizing the effort-to-sweat ratio), showered and then went home to Sea Point. Now, the gym to my pad is 8 or 9 kilometers apart. I drive down one road for about 7 kms, turn right for another km, turn left for another km. Traffic is light. It’s not hard.

Then why does it take me, at minimum, 20 minutes in each direction?!?

It’s because of those dastardly street lights. If there are 18 street lights (not unrealistic on that particular stretch), I guarantee I will hit about 14 on red. And I sit. And I wait. And I sweat. And as I sit, waiting, sweating, swearing, I will stare 5 meters in front of me at a green light. It is a green light that no one can use because EVERYONE IS SITTING AT THE RED ONE. And that’s when I breathe slowly and think of rainbows and kittens to keep me from losing my mind and doing a Michael Douglas Falling Down.

On Saturday, the rainbows and kittens and deep breathing didn’t work. At the outset, I must state that TheNotTheBullet doesn’t have aircon. That does not bode well with the still, humid, thick heat of the city bowl. On this particular day, maybe it was because I was still panting from my training session, maybe it was because I watched sweat pour down my arms and drip onto my new summer fun dress, maybe it was because I didn’t have my full ration of oatmeal for breakfast - I fell into a quiet, silent rage about 7 red lights in. When I finally made it home, after stopping and starting through town, sweating and swearing, I had to have a 45 minute Angry Nap just to come right. Maybe I should have had a Power Shake before I left the gym. That would have given me the strength I needed to deal with the drive home.