If you know me … I’m sorry.

However, you also probably know that I’m not a patient man. This is not an attribute anybody would ascribe to me and it never has been.

For some reason, I’ve always expected things to be done the first time and from time to time … to time, I don’t handle it well.

In a life that sometimes goes a hundred miles an hour, anything that holds me up is annoying and wildly irritating, much like the Minnesota Vikings.

But, I digress.

You can imagine then, how I might have reacted when we arrived at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival last Sunday with the prosepect of spending entirely too much time in a vehicle.

Not that I was alone, having had Janeen with me, so that helped a great deal.

Firstly, I should go on record as saying, I don’t really look forward to the Minnesota Vikings, Twins and Wild season openers or things of the like, but I do look forward to Ren Fest. I love the atmosphere, the shows and the fact that I get to play dress up as a 44-year-old man.

We went for a second time last weekend, and to say that getting in was different from the weekend before is not something to be taken lightly.

We usually come in from Jordan on Highway 169, because quite frankly the drive is nicer. I’ve traveled Interstate 90 hundreds of times for tournaments and other things and I’ve grown very tired of a drive that goes far too straight over far too familiar land. True story, it now takes days just to get to Blooming Prairie and just getting to Lakeville feels like the first part of “The Fellowship of the Ring.”

If you’ve read the book,you know what I’m talking about and I hope you can understand that we weren’t thrilled to hear about construction around Ren Fest. For people with no patience, construction often times represents our biggest test, and this was Ren Fest. I wanted a day of fun, not headaches.

The main entrance was closed this year, requiring people to either take a different turnoff to get to the King’s Gate or to turn at an intersection further down and make your way to the Queen’s Gate. We opted to go to the Queen’s Gate as it didn’t represent the longer  line and as easy as that, we sailed to where we parked, got into our outfits and made it in to enjoy the day.

This last time, I had every reason to believe it would be the same thing. I didn’t even entertain the idea of going to the King’s Gate and was bolstered by this when I saw a line stretching for about three miles leading up to the exit. There was no way I was going to do that, so on to the Queen’s Gate we went … only to see our own line. Apparently the entire state of Minnesota thought going to Ren Fest on this day was a good idea. They were wrong.

Obviously, I’m not going to begrudge people, but come on … some of you could have gone Saturday or this weekend — the last hurrah.

From the moment we inserted ourselves into the line to the moment we finally got to yell, “Hurrah! We’ve parked,” was an hour. AN HOUR!

One line for 60 minutes watching people play “Rock, Paper, Scissors” with people from other cars.

There was very little entertaining about it, especially once we fell into line behind a couple who decided to stop, let the man out for whatever reason, so he could pace the line, before veering off into another direction and disappearing into some trees before coming back out a few minutes.

I guess we got our answer. The line strikes at many in different ways.

All of these things contributed to a mood that was growing very tired and incredibly impatient.

I’m growing impatient just writing this and we had another 45 minutes just to get out again because everyone apparently decided to leave at the same time.

I’m sure all these people were nice, but I didn’t want to be in lines anymore with them.

On top of it all, I didn’t even get my annual pie from Wagner’s.

Huzzah … I guess.