I’ve been driving back and forth to the Cape a lot this year. It’s a drive I don’t really mind, though several times a week is tiring. Luckily I don’t do that much these days, but the guys working on the Provincetown house have to, especially my friend Bob who’s running the show.
It takes about two and a half hours to get from Boston to Provincetown in light traffic going the speed limit, so just a little over two hours driving like a Bostonian. But the warmer weather means more and more traffic headed toward the Cape and everywhere else. On a summer Friday the trip can get to four hours long going there, or back on a Sunday, and once there the traffic crawls on the one-lane-in-each-direction route 6.
The only good news about that part is that the number of speeding tickets one accrues is significantly reduced. The police around Orleans, Eastham, Truro, Wellfleet, and Provincetown operate a catch and release program for drivers exceeding 40 miles per hour that is merciless. They are very good at hiding their SUVs in scrub pine that rabbits find useless against birds of prey, pouncing on absolutely suspecting drivers who just. Can’t. Stand. It. One. More. Second. And break loose to 45 or 50 (or more) when the cars clear in front of them for a moment.
Drivers can’t help each other out, either. Bob, being a friendly type, recently flashed his brights at oncoming traffic when he passed a speed trap lying in wait for them. A previously-invisible cop in the approaching lane swung a U-turn and pulled him over.
“What do you think you’re doing?” The cop asked through Bob’s driver side window.
“I thought I saw someone I knew,” said Bob.
“Nothing illegal about that,” said the cop, looking over his sunglasses at him, taking his license and registration, “But you’re gonna be here for a while.”
There’s nothing like a cop with a sense of humor.
My son, Thing 1, and I drove down to the Cape last Friday for a quick errands and tasks one-day turn-around. As we were leaving Boston I groaned.
“I can’t believe I finally have someone in the car and I can’t use the zipper lane.”
The zipper lane is the now-thirty-year-old temporary solution to solving the Southeast Expressway’s congestion problem leaving or entering Boston.
It does not.
But it does help some, in that it opens up a temporary, additional lane for traffic going in the heaviest direction each day, north in the morning heading into the city, and south in the afternoon as commuters head back home. It does this by removing a lane in the lighter traffic direction using concrete barriers laid down in a zipper-like fashion by a large, zipper pull truck. That may not be its official name.
The extra lane is called the HOV lane. The catch is that HOV stands for High Occupancy Vehicle, meaning that solo drivers can’t use it. Even if they have a dog, which is ridiculous.
“I can’t believe I finally have someone in the car and I can’t use the zipper lane because it’s going the wrong way.”
Thing 1’s nickname really should be Mumbles. He’s got a low, soft voice, he doesn’t project, he usually chooses to speak to, say, a car window or into a backpack rather than directly toward a person. So it’s understandable that I thought he said something about blow up dolls.
I laughed. “I thought you just said…”
“That’s what my friend did. He’d drop his kid off at school in the morning and then have to drive across downtown Atlanta, so he bought a blow up doll so he could ride in the HOV lane.”
I looked at my son in awe.
“Did he ever get caught?”
“No. But he said he felt really weird pulling a blow up doll out of his trunk at his daughter’s school in the mornings.”
I had so many questions.
“Did he dress her up? I mean, was she dressed?” There is no good way to ask your son if it was the kind with the open mouth, so I didn’t. “Did he give her sunglasses? Wait - do they make sitting down ones? Aren’t they usually standing? Or, like, lying down?”
“Think about it, mom. You could strap her into the seatbelt. That would make her seated.”
I thought about it.
“I mean, it’s not like I don't have extra clothes she could wear… do they make them with swiveling heads?”
“I don’t know, mom. I’m not that up on blow up dolls.”
“Oh. Well I guess that’s good,” I said in what I thought was an encouraging voice.
“Yeah.”
It’s that kind of mother-son talk that brings families closer.
Within moments he was asleep, leaving me in the regular people lanes with him dozing in the front, the beagle snoring in the back, fighting the urge to pull over so I could look up blow up doll prices.
Here’s a tip for those of you thinking about it: Don’t Google that. Your search history informs a lot of ads you probably don’t want, but that I am now getting. Also, the word “novelty” is being seriously abused on the internet.
All this to say, once I’m living on the Cape more, and driving up and back at less convenient times, this may be something I have to try.
I wonder if it would explode in the sun?
Either way, it’s not going to be the worst companion I’ve ever had on a road trip.
Morning Teaistisms
The good weather is finally here! It’s just unreliable. Warm, but not actually warm, or warm for long. Cool, but not cool enough for the jacket you wore. That means it’s both hot and iced tea weather.
Sure, I could make two kinds of tea, and I often do. But Cardamon Cinnamon tea is good hot and cold, and so one pot gets through the most fickle of days.
Laughing early on a Tuesday morning. I think you should get one with the open mouth. They would be responding to your unfiltered humor!!!
Lol! Sounds just like Thing 1!
And so glad I didn’t photobomb the pretty tea picture!