Did you ever have one of those experiences where you try to do something normal and it turns out completely surreal? Last night I met the Snook in the city to buy his computer monitor. We decided to hire a cab and save on the $30 delivery fee. So we walked down York Street from the Queen Victoria Building, went in the shop, and paid for the monitor. I’m positive that only took fifteen minutes. We left with the box and hailed a cab to take it home. Two minutes later a man ran over as we were sitting at the red light. “You guys might want to get out,” he said. “There’s a protest going on up there and the cops have blocked the street.” What? It was like a flash mob. Sometime during the fifteen minutes we were at the computer store, a hundred Chilean protestors converged on York Street and started chanting about Pinochet and anti-Americanism. It was a little weird. We decided to stay with our cabbie though and he managed to get us through, only to run into atrocious traffic everywhere else. Eventually we made our way around to Glebe but the only street to our house from that direction is one-way… going the other way. “It’s okay,” I said. “We can just go around the block.” “No, it’s cool!” the driver said, before throwing it into reverse and speeding down the street backwards. The Snook and I were both yelling and holding on for life as he explained that the police cameras can only bust you if they see your car pointing the wrong way down the one-way street. How comforting. We finally screeched to a stop outside the apartment and we scrambled out. The fare? Thirty dollars. I’ll be sticking to mass transportation from now on. Sheesh.