Why do shortcuts never work out?  I don’t normally even attempt them–my track record is so bad.

But this morning I caved to temptation.

I was running a minute or two late in dropping my daughter off at preschool and hitting all the lights red.  I came to another red light, from which my usual route went straight.  To my right was a road which I knew could also get me to her school.  The sadistic temptor known as Mr. Time Waste whispered in my ear.  I wonder if that would be faster . . . the right turn through the red light decided me, and off we went.

But not too far.  What I’d forgotten was the busy-as-a-beehive elementary school sitting in our path.  When we’d waited while the two school buses and twenty cars in front of us stopped to let the thirty-million cars exiting the school merge with our traffic and swell the road congestion, then continued on a looping course, complete with one miss-turn, to my daughter’s school she was half an hour late and lucky to be only that.

What is it about shortcuts?  Not only the imprumptu ones that are ill-advised from the outset, but also the ones which have been carefully planned and mapped . . . only to have a road block and thirty-mile detour.

Go figure.