This past weekend I ventured North to Maple Grove, a suburb of Minneapolis.  I often cringed at the thought of coming anywhere close to that city.  If you have never been to Minneapolis, consider yourself more fortunate than most.

The year is 2009, The Jetsons promised us flying cars and devices that make our poo vaporize.  However, I feel the city of Minneapolis has been holding itself out for technology to catch up to such remarkable achievements in consumerism.  What the city failed to realize is that The Jetsons was merely a cartoon…there are no flying cars and we have yet to break the poo barrier.

Roughly two months ago, construction began on interstate 94.  I was not made aware of this in advance, nor was I made aware of it 2 seconds before I had to make a last second decision whether I had to take an off ramp for in hopes of detour or risk falling off the face of the earth.  Of course, traffic was horrendous with people not knowing what the fuck to do.  Somehow I ended up in the projects, fearing that my little Ford Escort with Wisconsin Badger bumper stickers wouldn’t survive a couple gun shots to the hood.  I drive around a bit, and head back to the highway 94 signs, because afterall, you’d think they would lead you back to a detour route.  This wasn’t the case.  Minneapolis road signs informed you that 94 was indeed open for business and that no such detours were needed.  I found myself back at the on-ramp for 94, but barricades blocked me.

Now what?

My only options was to drive back through the projects, hoping you find a ramp onto some highway…ANY highway.

It’s been a two months since the incident, which I made it out alive.  This past weekend I knew I would face a similar scenario  However, things were different.  Minneapolis warned me in advance of my arrival that 94 was indeed closed.  Detour signs were posted.  “HOORAY!” was my thinking.  Did the city finally realize their failure and corrected their mistake?  I was almost over-confident and over-joyed.  Thoughts of blog posts praising the city bounced around my head. “Minneapolis catapulted into 21st-century road construction strategy” was one headline I conjured up.

(Let me mention that detours are infamously known for being inconvenient in terms of re-routes.  Although shorter routes exist, detours are meant to divert traffic flow so that there minimal congestion (lol wut), but still get you to your destination.

Of course….this is not Minneapolis’s definition of a detour. )

I was impressed that Minneapolis finally figured out a detour, so with curiosity at my side, I decided to try the route, to see what path the city had in store for me.  I drove along a beautiful road, the name slips me.  A came across a ramp to get on 100, figuring it would lead me past the construction on 94, but the detour signs told me to continue my course.  I obeyed. I looked at my map and seen that 169 had to be the highway the detour would take me.  Sure enough…it wasn’t.  The detour signs ensured me they were not liars, and that my turn would be sooner rather than later.

I then considered that 494 would be the highway I would need to exit on, but the detour signs were growing irritated of my disobedience. With a quick slap to the face, I was ordered to take an immediate right turn onto some street by the detour signs.  I scratched my head as I turned onto what appeared to be a road for a couple gas stations and thats about it.

I drove a ways more, figuring it would be a nonstop path to freedom…saftey…and eventually water. My car came to a stop. I shut the engine off.  I exited my car, leaving my door ajar.  I crept towards the front, gazing at what I had just seen.

A dead end.

But it wasn’t any sort of dead end, it was a realization.  A realization that Minneapolis is not a city to be trusted.  A realization that a city that can’t build roads, bridges, or even careers, doesn’t want a person like me.  The city isn’t meant to be a beginning, it is meant to be an end.  It is where quarterbacks go to end their career of misery, it is where washed up media personalities go to be useless politicians.

The detour wasn’t meant to be an alternative to my destination, it was meant to be a message to me that I am not ready for Minneapolis and that I may never be.  It wanted me to get as far away as possible, that I am young, and it wished for me to be forever young.

Minneapolis doesn’t have a Greek meaning, or Swedish translation.  It is what it was always meant to be.