This post might belong on my culture blog…
I’ve got a few things that I have to get off my chest…
Since we arrived on the East Coast, we have been paying through the nose to drive on the dang highway. Toll roads are nearly everywhere!
$8 charge to drive for two hours on the highway to get to my parents house. Then, another $4 to cross the bridge.
Two days later, $12 to go to Hershey Park and another $12 to get back.
Let me make sure you got that…
I had to pay $24 to drive to and from a theme park that is two hours away!
Not to go inside…
not to eat anything…
not to buy gasoline…
just to get there! I was not happy about that!
My wife failed to appreciate my freedom loving indignation. So, she tried to help me see the brighter side of the situation…
“I think its good that they collect the money because they’re using it to fix the roads.”
She probably thought that because of all the work zones. (I’ll get to those in a minute!)
The words no sooner got out of her mouth and wham…we hit a huge pothole…
The kind of pothole that knocks your suspension out of whack! And it wasn’t just one.
“Yeah, I am so glad they are using all of that money to fix their roads. Can you imagine how bad they would be without it?” (Yes, that would be called biting sarcasm!)
Perhaps I have gotten a little sensitive since I moved to the Midwest…but in my memory banks are video clips of fabulously famous “cultured” metropolitan people from either coast yukking it up on TV about “rednecks” living on washboard, dirt roads…
I’m sorry…but I need someone to educate me…I don’t see the difference?
As we were making our escape from New York City down FDR Drive, we had a car on either side. The guy behind us was driving so close that he evidently wanted to see what we were listening to. I was trapped! There was nowhere to go but forward.
Without warning, a pothole suddenly swallowed the whole right front side of my truck! I started checking to make sure that my family was still inside!
Now, if I was driving on a dirt road, I could pretty much figure out where the rough spots are and try to avoid them because there is usually no one else on the road! Now that I think about it, I could even slow down! And, while I’m on the subject, usually the view on the dirt road is better!
Then there are the “work” zones. I think the whole state of New Jersey is one big “work” zone.
I put “work” in quotations because no one was ever working. There wasn’t even any equipment on the side of the road! I could swear that they were “working” on the same roads 4 years ago when we visited. Hardly anything has changed!
Ah, but all of those orange cones are a beautiful sight to a political bureaucrat. Why? Because those orange cones authorize them to also put out orange signs. Those orange signs inform the traveling public that traffic fines are doubled in “work” zones!
Such an ingenious, innocent, completely understandable way to FEED THE GOVERNMENT PIG…er…I’m sorry. I got a little wound up there. I meant…increase revenue!
Do you think I have a bad attitude?
