Last night I learned a couple of things about myself.  As I was eating a BBQ sauce soaked chicken breast suddenly realized I have a major aversion to anything and everything related to chickens and food.  I don’t like the phrase and idea of chickens running around after their heads are chopped off, I can’t stand eggs and the nasty smell they emit when they are being cooked, and the reason my lunches sit in the freezer at work are because I am subconciously avoiding eating them because the main ingredient is chicken.  I also realized that MODOT is my arch enemy – but they started it.

If you have ever called St. Louis home, for even a breif stint of time, you probably know that the major central highway, 40/64, was shutdown on January 2nd and will remain closed in portions for what seems like the remaining years of my natural life.  I am “lucky” enough the live at the eastern most point of the highway that is currently closed down and what will become the western most point of the shutdown during the second phase of construction.  I can, and will continue to be able to, access the highway during the entire construction project remaining years of my time here because of where I live.  HOWEVER – it occurred to me during the 2 hour intervals upon which I was stirred from my sleep that I also continue to suffer for the entire construction project remaining years of my life because I am at this central point of the construction. 

Every two hours, that’s right, every two hours I was jolted from a dreamless sleep (that is what happens when you don’t really complete a sleep cycle) by the drilling and pile driving of the work crews off in the distance.  Even after I crammed monster sized ear plugs in my too tiny ear canals and they had expanded to sufficiently smash my ear drums the construction woke me up. 

Since the shutdown, I have been dealing with gawkers blocking the overpass as they snap pictures of the dirt that was once the busy interstate highway, I have been dealing with super-booger insanity as the air around me is smothered with dirt and dust, and now I am faced with years of sleepless nights by benefit of the pile-drivers.

If you lived in St. Louis in the months leading up to the highway’s shutdown, you know that there was a Y2K apocalyptic mood in the air.  Once the highway was closed, just like Y2K, people realized they had been all tizzied for abso.lutlely.nothing.  Traffic has been lighter for most people because everyone has been found a super secret pathway to their destination, but the collateral damage – not the getting around – is killing me.