The Shortest Distance Between 2 Points Is Not A Line

I’m a fairly patient person. Not overly patient, but not too uptight. This is what I’ve realized, if I know that something is going to take a long time, I’m okay with it. But if I have to wait when something should be quick, I have a bit of an internal fit. For example, right out of college I worked for a bank. That brilliant bank decided to assign me to a branch that was on the other side of town from where I live. Every day I had about an hour and a half commute each way. I managed. Partially because I had no choice, but partially because I’d just come to accept it. It’s going to take me an hour and a half to get home. The end. On evenings that it would take an hour and 45 minutes, I’d get extremely grumpy and feel like crying.

The Houston Rodeo is popular. If you’ve never had the opportunity to go, you should put it on your bucket list. There’s a carnival, delicious food, a livestock show, a great rodeo, and then a show. I like to go to at least one show a year. Stephen and I have decided that we prefer to go to weekend shows because we aren’t quite as rushed. Leaving from work and fighting the traffic doesn’t leave anytime for anything besides the rodeo and show. But this year we had the opportunity to get free tickets to the Lady Antebellum show. We like them. We decided that since the tickets were free, it wouldn’t be so bad that we missed out on the livestock show and carnival.

Famous last words.

Our evening was not quite as good as it should have been. I left work at 5 to go to the bank and then pick Stephen up. We were headed toward the rodeo when all of a sudden I realized that I left our tickets on my desk at work. Queue: Freak out. Stephen stayed calm and said, “No problem, we’ll just go pick them up.” Here’s the problem. If the last person is gone then the alarm is set and there is no way to get in there until the morning. Since it was 5:45 I was thinking that everyone was going to be gone. I got grumpy and I started sweating. Luckily someone was still there and I was able to get in. Crisis averted. Although it did add a bit of time to our drive.

We headed toward the rodeo again. Traffic. Oh the traffic. People fighting to get in exit lanes, stop and go cars everywhere, even a fender bender next to us because a Hummer was being too ambitious. It was a nightmare. We finally exited and headed toward the parking lot. Lilnes after line of cars. A line to exit, a line to turn, a line to turn toward paid parking, a line at the lights, a line to enter the parking lot. On and on. Somehow we managed to find a lone spot in that lot. We parked, Stephen took his pants off in the back seat of the car so he could change into jeans, I watched and knocked on the window to annoy him, and then we loaded the tram.

And finally, we were there! My only request of the night was to get a funnel cake. It’s the one time a year I get a funnel cake. I decided to get some nachos at the carnival so that I had something nutritious in my belly before stuffing it with fried batter. After dinner we high-tailed it to the stadium to watch some of the rodeo, get my funnel cake, and watch the show.

We watched a couple events and then Stephen decided he need a pit stop and a trip to the funnel cake counter. About 25-35 minutes later he showed up empty handed with a scowl on his face. He’d stood in a very long line to get our funnel cakes and when he finally reached the front, they were out. I did my best to hold back the tears but my disappointment was obvious. We watched a couple more events and then Stephen decided he’d try to find another counter selling funnel cakes. My hero. It seemed like hours had passed before I finally texted him, “If you haven’t found them, come back. I feel like a mean wife.” His response, “OMG I’m getting a drink!” Turns out he’d check at the front of a counter to make sure they weren’t out, then got in the line, by the time he was at the front they were out. LAME.

So, no funnel cake. Wow, I’ve used 774 words to tell you that there was traffic and I didn’t get a funnel cake.

The rodeo was good, the show was good. Although I was not a fan of Hilary’s outfit. We left and headed toward our tram pick up. What do you know, a line. More accurately, a mob of people supposed to be in a line. A worker told us to split down the middle and form two lines. We made our way to our assigned spot. Oh lookie there, more people on the other side of the mob. Without drawing you a picture, this may be hard to explain. Basically, the line was being fed from both ends… but neither end knew that. So we somehow ended up in the middle (aka: the front) and promptly got yelled at by a drunk girl. We were accused of cutting and “obviously not being from around here.” Don’t get me started girlfriend. I am pregnant, I have pee, my feet hurt from my boots that SHOCKINGLY already don’t fit my pregnant feet, I’m tired, and you’re drunk. I ignored her. Another guy next to us said, “Uh, we’ve been waiting in line a long time.” I just responded, “I understand that but they told us to come here. They are feeding the line from both sides.” The tram showed up and put 17,000 people onto it and it was over. Or so we thought.

At this point it was about 10:15. Not terribly late, but past my bedtime for sure. We found our car thanks to my husband’s amazing internal GPS or the fact that he looked at the number on the light pole next to us. We got in and… nothing. Gridlocked. Not a single car was able to move. We were annoyed, but not as annoyed as we could have been. At about 11:15 we finally go out of the parking lot… only to see gridlocked streets. Stephen decided to take the path of least resistance and then figure out our way home from there. He did it beautifully. We pulled into our driveway about ten minutes after midnight. I was dead tired, grumpy, and seriously pissed that there wasn’t a funnel cake in my belly.

Yesterday morning I got a call from my brother asking if we wanted to go to the rodeo with them last night. Gary Allen was playing and they had tickets in a suite. TICKETS IN A SUITE. I was so tempted. Suites probably don’t run out of funnel cakes. But I ultimately said no because I kept replaying the view of tailights and drunk hoochie chicks. I just can’t handle it, the wound was too fresh. One more line would certainly send me straight to the loony bin.

But seriously y’all, you should totally go to the rodeo. It’s great.