Things people say

Unless you’ve been living underneath that proverbial rock for the last few days, you’ve no doubt heard about the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Very sad stuff here, folks. Still, it provides one of those moments in life where you get to discuss something of great importance, and listen to the crazy stuff people say.

So, during lunch yesterday, one of my coworkers makes the statement, “I don’t do bridges.” He was responding to the reason he didn’t move to southern Indiana when he had the opportunity to do so, because he didn’t want to commute over the Kennedy bridge in Louisville every day. One of the team managers commented that despite my coworker not liking bridges, and despite him living on the same side of the river as where he worked, he still passed at least a couple bridges every day.

Now, I doubt I really have to point out the absurdity level within my coworker’s statement; I’m sure all of you have figured this out by now. However, I will now attempt to take the absurdity one level higher.

My daily commute is about 106 miles total. Fifty-three miles each way, most of that distance happening on I-65. Its long, but at least the scenery used to be nice. One of the things I mentioned in that prior post was that I missed all the disappearing trees. Earlier this week I discovered that my 4-lane interstate was going to, within the next few years, be mostly 6 lane highway. That eased my pain of the lost trees just a bit, but not completely.

Anyway, I decided to count the number of bridges I either went over or under on my trip home. In that 53 mile span, I traverse a whopping 33 bridges. If you want to get really detailed, the 8 miles closest to my house have no bridges, so I really travel those bridges in 45 miles. I don’t think it would even be possible for me to get to work, at least not in a timely manner, without using a bridge. There is a small river I travel over every day, along with at least one large creek. They’re just a part of life anymore.

I will say that the bridge replacement being done to 1 of those 33 bridge, along with the unfortunate state of the Minnesota bridge, has made me a bit more conscious during my commute, but I’m still going to make that drive.