For once my neighbour and I , travelling from different directions, found ourselves at the same, shoulder-shrugging conclusion: it's a surreal old world.
Of course, there are similarities between the state of the country in the aftermath of the election and the trauma produced by Roy Keane's departure from the national soccer team.
Of course, a lot of time and effort has gone to waste. Expectations of vigorous and decisive campaigns have been (or seem about to be) frustrated.
And, even before the dust has settled on business in hand, recrimination has begun - in sport as in politics.
It would be foolish though to take the comparison too far. Fine Gael has, indeed, been the principal loser in the election. And while the extent of its losses, counted in seats, is disproportionate to its loss of votes, significant financial costs - in state aid to the party - have yet to be fully assessed.
The most serious losses, however, will be those of leadership, personnel and self-esteem.
It will be the sudden, sickening realisation that while Michael Noonan and many Fine Gael spokesmen recognise the depths of our social problems, the party as a whole was slow to challenge the Government - and the electorate - with their responsibilities.
If Fine Gael was now to retreat behind the conservative hedges of Christian Democracy, it would not only find itself ill-equipped to meet the major issues of the new Dáil but too close to Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats for comfort.
LIKE Labour, Fine Gael must face the reality of a Dáil divided as seldom before and begin, as Eamon Gilmore, Pat Rabbitte and Liz McManus have begun, to examine how the parties and independents who are left of centre may combine in opposition.
Labour, who suffered two of the most serious losses from the Dáil with the defeat of Derek McDowell in Dublin and Dick Spring in Kerry, shouldn't need to be reminded that the party is still the principal target of the new right and its corporate supporters.
Nor should Labour and the independents of the new Dáil leave out of their reckoning the trade unions, voluntary groups and social partners whose members will find themselves under attack once the Fianna Fail-Progressive Democrat allies get down to the business of cleaning up the financial mess they may now pretend they knew nothing about.
Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats are dab hands at forgetting. Five years ago, Ahern was up every tree in north Dublin looking for evidence which might have prevented the appointment of Ray Burke to the cabinet.
He found none - or so he told Mary Harney of the Progressive Democrats, who was about to become Tánaiste. Burke was duly appointed to foreign affairs - a key position in a Government already preparing for the Belfast Agreement.
Within months, Ray Burke was forced out of office and the Flood tribunal had begun to pore over evidence of his activities and the activities of his business associates and contributors to his election campaigns.
There were two reminders of these events in the last fortnight of the election. One of the Bailey brothers who were among Burke's most memorable associates turned up in the ranks of Fianna Fáilers at an election count in Dublin where the party celebrated taking a second seat in Burke's old constituency.
And the Attorney General, Michael McDowell, repeated Ahern's climbing feat - not in search of evidence but to deliver a warning about the risks attached to an unrestrained, single-party Fianna Fáil government.
While McDowell conjured the threat at every street corner and on every lamp post, the Independent Group of Newspapers whooped it up with such headlines as "It's a landslide," "Fianna Fáil Heads for Biggest Victory" and "All Over Bar the Voting"
In the event, the stroke worked.
Timid Fine Gaelers feared the return to Fianna Fáil strokery and voted for the Progressive Democrats, which may help to explain the recovery by the PDs in the last week of the campaign.
IT DOES NOT explain what - apart from tactical considerations - lay behind the warnings of the Attorney General, the Tánaiste and their colleagues.
When such accusations are made, the public - to whose interest all politicians are committed - is entitled to be told, clearly and precisely, what ministers or parties are accused of, in what way trust has been broken and how it may be restored.
Some commentators assume that because of its size and time in office, Fianna Fáil may now feel free to consider its interests synonymous with those of the State. The temptation is strongest where competition is weakest and the Opposition seems least capable of coherent criticism or of mounting an effective challenge in the Dáil.