Old time doctors endured blizzards on horseback or midnight summons to distant farms, but some modern healers share their miseries. The phone woke me at 11:30. A lady at a downtown hotel was suffering an allergic reaction. This was not bad news; downtown is a mere ten miles away; I charge extra for calls that get me out of bed, freeway traffic is light, and I can sleep late. I wrote down the information and dressed.

Traffic was minimal, but as I approached the interchange leading to downtown, a long line of traffic cones forced me to the outside lane. The ramp heading north was closed. The highway department schedules inconvenient maintenance for the wee hours, and these delays are not rare. No problem, I thought. I continued on to the next exit and re-entered the freeway to retrace my route. Cones quickly appeared, so the other north ramp to downtown was also blocked. By the time I learned this, I was forced onto the freeway heading south. Again I left at the first exit only to discover no on-ramp in the opposite direction. Fortunately, there was Figueroa, the main street through downtown, so I decided to follow it. That turned out to be everyone's idea, so I joined a gridlock that crept north.

I apologized for arriving an hour late, and the patient was too polite to express skepticism that heavy traffic at 1 a.m. was responsible.