Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The isle of temptation

Wow, two weeks and not a peep. So sorry, I'll try to do better. The noodle had the flu all last week. Poor thing. It was heartbreaking to witness. Gone was my wild girl. My girl who loves food and drink (like her mama). My good sleeper. My silly, silly goose. Thankfully, she's on the mend now. Perhaps a lesson learned would be to actually go back to the pediatrician for the second round of the flu mist next time. Whether or not it would have stopped this strain of flu, I'll never know. But at least I wouldn't feel so personally responsible if I'd been, um, responsible.

Anyhow, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself last week and started to write about how sad I feel that our plans to have a second child have been put on hold for this long and wondering whether I have the staying power to start all over again once the noodle is a preschooler, or older. But that's not your problem. Not today, at least. So, here's some light musing instead ...

A couple of times a week, I find myself driving on one of the least efficient and least attractive streets in Richmond: West Broad Street. I'm sorry if you disagree but it's the truth. If you're not a Richmonder I'm sure you have a street like this by a different name in your locality, like 23rd Street in Panama City or Arlington Boulevard in Northern Virginia.

Let's address the efficiency first. If traveling during daylight hours, you'll stop at nearly every traffic light, which translates to nearly every intersection. Is this the result of poor planning or is it by design? Either way, you can't win.

But assuming you have all the time in the world and not a single two-year-old in your car, you still can't argue it's a cruelly unattractive street. Let's see, there are a gratuitous number of car dealerships intermixed with gas stations and fast food joints. That's pretty much it. Except that Target just happens to be right in the thick of it all. And Target is my lifeblood. I finally found a sneaky way to get to Target without subjecting myself to West Broad, but inevitably I'll forget about the sneaky way on one leg of that trip. So, there I am sitting at the traffic lights looking at the fast food restaurants. At lunchtime. And all of a sudden, I'm salivating. I. Must. Have. Wendy's. Burger King. McDonald's. Panera. Chipotle. Krispy Kreme. I'm stuck on the isle of temptation, and I'm not known for my willpower.

Today I resisted. But it's only a matter of time until I'm driving down West Broad while chowing down on a greasy bacon and blue cheese burger, slurping a supersized Coke and licking the donut icing off my fingers. First of all that's a safety hazard. Second, I cannot gain one more pound. Not a single one. I'm done. The buck stops here.

Which leads me to this: For the safety of all Richmonders and the health of one weak mama, I propose we shut down West Broad Street. Effective immediately. We can call it an urban beautification project and maybe even score some government funding. In it's place anyone who cares to can plant victory gardens. There's plenty of room for all. Who's with me?

1 comment:

llmueller25 said...

Let's do it! Debbie and I will never forget our "tour" of Richmond that we were given by a new real estate agent when we first moved to town. It consisted of driving up and down W. Broad for an hour and a half in a car with exhaust problems that were blowing in the back window which wouldn't close. After a migraine headache from hell and wondering where in God's name we were moving, we told the agent we would not be working with her and went on our merry way. I've avoided W. Broad as much as humanly possible ever since with the definite exception of Mi Kong - in the most unattractive strip mall, but with the best Vietnamese in town!