Going into last weekend, the region was holding its collective breath. Which cultural phenomenon would wreak the most havoc on local traffic? Would it be the arrival of country superstar Kenny Chesney at Heinz Field, the impending start of the U.S. Open in Oakmont, Wheel of Fortune's two-day spin at Station Square or the closing of the Squirrel Hill Tunnel?

If life were fair, the Squirrel Hill Tunnel closing would have caused the biggest nightmare. PennDOT deserves bad karma and curses just for scheduling a major shutdown on what everyone knew was going to be one of the summer's busiest weekends.

But as any "Wheel watcher" can tell you, life is not fair. Squirrel Hill was a hiccup, which proves once and for all that Pittsburghers are way smarter than PennDOT. We plan alternate routes for the shutdown the way we stockpile bread and milk when the experts predict a light snow.

It was clear that the Chesney fans got the worst of it. It was also clear they were too happy to care.

At first I didn't know what was going on. (Obviously, I'm clueless enough to coordinate the region's road crews.) When I left the house Saturday morning on an errand near the stadiums, the highways were clear. But a half-hour later, traffic was backed up horrifically on every road leading to the North Shore.

I picked up my sister, whose quick brain and awesome command of trivia were going to win us a fortune, and we headed to Station Square. The night before, I'd been weighing the Smithfield Street Bridge versus the T, surface parking versus a Downtown garage; but now the goal was simply to get through the hordes descending upon Heinz Field. Before we could reach the Fort Duquesne Bridge we had to cut across a lane that looked like it was backed up on Route 28 all the way to Oakmont.

"What's all this about?" I wondered aloud.

"It's Kenny Chesney," my sister answered. "He's huge -- bigger than the Steelers!" I'm pretty sure that's blasphemy.

But crowds were already tailgating in the lots beneath us, seven hours before the concert, grilling burgers and playing Frisbee. They were probably happier than people taking the Squirrel Hill detours or the people buying their way to Oakmont.

And they were certainly happier than the hundreds, maybe thousands, of disappointed fans who never got a chance to buy a vowel from Vanna White. A word puzzle enthusiast, I remember a skit on the 20th anniversary show in which host Pat Sajak asks an unseen person, "So how long have you been trying to be a contestant on 'Wheel of Fortune'?" The camera pans over to his interviewee, a cobweb-draped skeleton.

We wannabes were almost that parched on Saturday. We trekked what felt like miles to get to the end of the contestants' signup line. From there, along the Mon, we could see the bumper-to-bumper Chesney traffic inching toward the Point.

Our good spirits waned quickly in the baking sun and in the realization that only a few dozen people were going to get to audition. Sure, the road-show host, Marty Something-or-other, was funny in a post-ironic way: He urged us to sign up with show sponsor Sony to receive a free "blinky pen," explaining, "It's a pen and it blinks!" But knowing that I wasn't going to get to use what the kids call my "mad puzzle-solving skills" to fund their wildest electronic gadgetry fantasies cast a pall on the show's incessant huckstering.

So we decided to monitor the action over iced tea at an adjacent restaurant. A half-hour in, when the waitress passed us for the umpteenth time empty-handed, she commented, "Sorry for the wait -- We didn't know this was coming."

Didn't know "Wheel of Fortune" was setting up shop on their sidewalks? My sister rolled her eyes. "They must work for PennDOT." We left early, with neither iced tea nor blinky pen to show for our efforts, sunburned but otherwise unscathed by the traffic dramas.

The scathing, such as it was, arrived Sunday evening, when my husband and I thought we had to get to the Pennsylvania Turnpike from the North Side without using the Squirrel Hill Tunnel. We took Route 28 east, running smack into a flood of golfers near Oakmont, not knowing Pittsburgh drivers were so cooperative that PennDOT had reopened the Parkway East 14 hours ahead of schedule.

May all these challenging weekends unfold so smoothly.

But since apparently no one at PennDOT golfs, listens to country music or watches game shows, I think I'll help them out by suggesting that they schedule the next big closure -- of, say, the Parkway East inbound -- on the first upcoming weekend that offers a Steelers game, U2 at the Mellon Arena and in-town shoots for the next Jackie Chan-Chris Tucker "Rush Hour" flick.

First Published: June 13, 2007, 9:00 p.m.