In the six or seven weeks that I have been 100% carless and entirely dependent for transportation to work on my own two feet, the Metro, and the Ride On shuttle, I have learned that it does not matter if I leave my apartment at 5:55 or 6:15 in the morning: I will not get to the office any earlier than seven.

As happened a week ago, if I leave my apartment at 6:15, and there’s a “signal problem” delaying trains on the Red Line by seventeen minutes (that’s how long I had to wait once I got to the platform), I will still manage to get to the office at seven.

If I leave my apartment at six, and get to the platform just in time to dart through the closing doors of a waiting train, then get off in the county and walk up to the stop just as the shuttle pulls up, I will still not get to the office before seven.

On one hand, this is bizzarely amusing. Could I leave my apartment at 6:50 and still get to the office by seven?

On the other hand, this is kind of scary: why is it that no matter how early I leave, I can’t manage to get to the office any faster?

Why, you ask, would I possibly want to get to the office before 7? Flex time. And I want to leave early Thursday to go to the National Museum of Natural History. (I’ve vowed to do one “touristy” thing a week — last week, I went to the Zoo, this week, to NHNH, next week: eh, National Gallery?)