Due to some serious snow in New England, I was happily trapped in NH an extra day - allowing my muscles to heal from two solid days of skiing in VT. However - my attempts to get back home were impeded to the point that I thought a higher power was trying to keep me from getting on the flight home. First, my Sunday 6pm flight was cancelled as Southwest saw a few flurries and did everything but dissolve the company outright. So I had to spend a day in Portsmouth and then wandered around my alma mater (University of New Hampshire) for a full day. Lessons learned: all of the cute girls are most definitely gone. They have nice new buildings all over the place, which I bet get used because the cute girls are gone and people are actually studying. Everyone looks approximately 13-15 years old. I wondered where my damn school went.
Got a ride to Manchester airport where I lost my boarding pass not once, but twice. My 7pm flight was delayed, cancelled, and magically uncancelled a minute later. I got back to DC after midnight, and when I was close to home, saw a guy lying across the breakdown lane and then travel lane. I slowed down and proceeded to call 911, and they went to check it out.
I am kicking myself for not getting out of the car to help him. All I could think of was Bill Cosby's son who was killed on the side of the road by people pretending to need help. I was by myself and the road was empty. I didn't want to get jacked. But then again, I had rubber gloves in my trunk, full medical gear, and a one-way valve CPR breather-thing (that's the technical term). My mind was so shot none of this ever occurred to me. And then I looked back on all of the delays from the last two days, and I wonder if that's why they all happened - so I could be there to help this dude who was probably very hurt. And I didn't. I did the easy thing and called the police because I was too afraid of getting car-jacked. I had no idea how cynical I was until now. I want to apologize to the man but I don't know how. It's a pretty awful feeling when you think your number was just called and you passed on doing the work because you worried about yourself.