Shoot me now

Everyone who has lived in the Washington, D.C. area for a while probably has a Wilson Bridge story. I remember spending the night on the bridge once. It was 20 degrees, and since I typically ran my car with less than a dollar's worth of gas in the tank, I couldn't run the car all night. Which didn't matter, 'cuz it was an old Volkswagon Beetle that had no heat even when the car was running.

But my all-time favorite Wilson Bridge story was one I read in the Washington Post, some time ago. This guy was traveling through the area with his family on I95 North. He got a flat tire just as he entered the bridge from the Virginia side. You may recall that the Virginia side of the river, at that spot, has a couple hundred yards of muck at low tide. Anyway, after getting his family out of the car and positioned in a relatively safe place, he returned to the vehicle to fix the flat tire. As he was getting things out of the trunk, he saw a car speeding towards him, and it was obvious the car wasn't going to stop. So he did the ONLY thing he could do - he jumped over the jersey barrier to escape certain death. A couple of seconds later his car was totalled and he was chest-deep in muck (his family was fine). While he stood there stuck in the muck, he must have reflected back on how, just a few short minutes earlier, he'd been sipping his coffee and talking quietly with the wife.


Today, I was that guy - figuratively speaking. Yesterday, I was Mr. Mom, happily unemployed. Then I got the call at about 7pm. This morning, I was up at 5. It was 8 degrees out. I rushed out the door and schlepped my way around the Beltway with a bazillion other poor schmucks. I drove to Charlottesville for a day-long meeting - my first in YEARS.

I too did my own reflecting. I thought about a commercial I'd seen during the Super Bowl. Portrayed in a rain-forest setting that resembled a "Lost" episode, these office workers were sent running for their lives when management called a meeting. Hundreds of these office workers ran past a security guard and dove off a cliff to certain death.

At one point during today's meeting, the thought of jumping off a cliff did occur to me. Hey, its a paycheck.