If It's Raining And There Is No Traffic; Why Not Create Your Own Detour?

Typically when it rains as hard as it did this morning I like to leave my apartment 10-15 minutes earlier than usual to avoid traffic and potentially being late to work. However, on this particular morning I also decided to take a new route. I live downtown and always take either Bowery or 2nd Avenue to Delancey and then head on over the Williamsburg Bridge to get me to Long Island.

Today, however, I decided to see where Avenue B would lead me to. Sure enough, because I am a SPAZ, and things just don't work out for me, I was lead to a "Do Not Enter” sign after Houston.

Instead of doing what any normal person would do at this point, i.e. make a right and head towards 2nd Ave to get to Delancey, I needed to satisfy my curiosity and continued on my journey east. I ended up so far east on Houston that I was in a land of streets I had never before heard of: Attorney, Ridge, Pitt, Sheriff, and Columbia.

Having now wasted a solid 10 minutes of my morning commute, (the amount of time I left early to avoid a traffic jam) I realized, after turning right on Columbia and making it to Delancey, that the SPAZ that I am managed to be 8 streets east of the entrance to the bridge!! And of course you cannot make legal U-turns on Delancey!

So, I was forced to head west until I recognized a street name that I could turn around on. I chose to do a Clinton - Rivington - Suffolk route, but then Oh no! No left turns onto Delancey from Suffolk! So now, having wasted 15 minutes of my morning commute I am now back on Delancey heading west. This time I managed to do a little Norfolk - Rivington - Essex maneuver and successfully made it to the bridge and arrived at work a mere 25 minutes late.

Lesson learned - if you are a SPAZ - do not try new routes in the rain, or probably ever.

For further enjoyment I have attached a map of my journey out of Manhattan: (you can click on it to make it larger)