The Varsity Travels of a Long-Haul Local

Im a homebody. That fact is based on both my economic situation and my personal comfort. I live the largest percentage of my life within an hour’s drive of my house.

Wait. I’m sorry. I know it drives my European friends crazy when we here in the United States answer questions about distance with units of time. That’s not really as inconsistent as it may sound. There is a limit to how long I want to be in a car, no matter how much or how little distance I cover in that time.

For the sake of your sanity, I live the largest percentage of my life within about 80 kilometers of my house.

Good? Let us continue.

Quite a few years ago, my then employer called me after school on a Friday and asked me if I would drive a Girls’ basketball team to another *local* high school for a game. I really didn’t want to do it, but he assured me I would be home in about two hours.

Fine. I agreed to take them. It was a Catholic high school team and let me tell you, those girls are BRUTAL. Their behavior made the drive feel so much longer than it actually was. They swore like merchant marines and they jumped from seat to seat. Their coaching staff did nothing to restrain them. As a side note, They had an huge platter of “victory cookies” that they were only permitted to eat if they proved victorious, which seemed coercive to me.

Anyway. Remember that my boss assured me that I would be home in about two hours. The drive was greater than two hours each way. Beyond that, it wasn’t a single match, it was a tournament. The girls were finally eliminated around 01:00 hours: no cookies for them, straight into the trash they went. BRUTAL.

Now, this was also in the dead of winter so of course it snowed just over 30 centimeters during the tournament. I had plotted the route between their home school and the tournament, but I had not really given much thought to the return trip because I assumed that I would simply reverse the original route. But nooooo. The coach wanted to get home faster and at 02:00, the fastest route cut through the city. He asked me “how are you at driving in snow?” Don’t insult me. I countered with “How are you at giving directions?”

It took almost three hours to get back. The trip that my boss assured me would be under two hours, was very near to twelve. It was a long trip not only because of time and distance, but also due to weather related stress and unruly passengers.