So what did I do for my Memorial Day? Well, because the stripper I propositioned welched on me, I woke up, mowed the lawn, ate hot dogs and eggs with my parents (what a food combination) dinked around on the Internet, then decided to try out driving downtown and then using the light rail from there to go to the Mall of America. It would be less hectic to try out with no work traffic and no Twins game traffic to deal with. Besides, I would have gone exercising and then hit the library instead, but it's a holiday, so I had nothing else to do.
So I park at my usual spot, then take a solitary walk through downtown to get to the light rail station. It felt peaceful -- no sun in the sky, rather cool and windy, and nobody around who might make fun of me. On the one hand it seemed like what I expected downtown Minneapolis would be on Memorial Day, deserted. On the other hand I would have expected a little more hubbub just because it's a holiday. For example I passed by the bar where the alumni club holds its game watches. I understand it's Memorial Day, which is fairly solemn and is usually spent with family and friends. But shit, it's a Monday where you don't have to work. Did anybody go in? Well, why am I complaining, I didn't either.
I passed by a guy who was trying to figure out the new damn electronic pay stations. There are signs where the old trusty coin-fed meters once were, and now you have to go to this small stand and pay for a receipt which serves as your ticket except no one understands how the fuck you work one of those things. Of course, since it's Memorial Day that guy didn't have to worry about that because those meters weren't enforced. But I guess I was in lost in my own thoughts because I didn't think to stop and tell him, or at least help him figure out that newfangled contraption.
So I went down to the Megamall and went back, and it was fun. Liked that it wasn't crowded with people. Trip was fine; much longer than it would have taken by car, but I didn't have to use up the gas to go down there and back, and since I got back onboard within 2 1/2 hours I got to take a round-trip for $1.75 instead of $3.50.
But walking back to my car I put two and two together: If it is a holiday, why didn't I park at a meter closer to the light rail? The place is deserted, after all, and it would have saved me a lot of time schlepping all the way to the outer rim of downtown. I guess it was force of habit, but I decided to use Memorial Day to take advantage of trying out using the light rail down to MOA precisely because no one was around. I also knew that meters weren't enforced on holidays. It just never occurred to me that the twin facts of no one was around and those empty meters weren't enforced on holidays meant that I would have been OK to park next to one of those.
And I couldn't help but feel, even now, that I wasted an opportunity. Never will I have this day again. That may be too aphoristic, but it's true. I wanted to do something to "make it right," and the first, and only, thing I could think of was to drive my car to one of the many meters open along First Avenue and take the light rail down to the Mall of America again. That way I could say it took me only a minute to leave my car and hop on the light rail, and then come back and drive off within 60 seconds. Ridiculous to even attempt, I know, but I had so many meters that I realized I had passed by, and I had so much time, and there was no one, I mean, no one, around. But I had to go home.
Maybe I'll have another chance. But I don't know if Independence Day or Labor Day will give me a similar desolate scene from which to make moves on my own. Hell, everybody could be downtown those days for all I know. Next year? Shit, I might not remember this next year. And to top it all off it was a very cloudy and cool day; there was a chance of showers that never came, but the high for the day was only 62. In other words, it was quite seasonal, though very bad on my sinuses and eyeballs. I was wearing a jacket in case of rain, and even though it was very warm, next year would probably be humid as fuck because it's going to be 90 and sunny. What I'm trying to say is, I will never have as good a set of circumstances -- nobody around, my pick of meters, taking the light rail down to the Megamall, overcast and cool weather -- to park in downtown like I fucking run downtown. And it still claws at me, even after four days.
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