Put the mute back in commute
An open letter to those who have decided to live on the opposite side of Lake Washington from where they work, then complain endlessly about their commute:
Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
Is your commute slow? Yes, there's a fucking glacial lake in the middle of it and you're not driving a fucking boat. Is it now costly? Yes, and why should the rest of us fucking pay for it?
Oh, the 520 bridge toll! The citizenry stopped bankrolling your selfish desire to work in Redmond but not live there because it's far too lame for you. (Or, perhaps, to work in Seattle but not live there because you just had to have a fucking half-acre in Issaquah all to yourself.) Horrors! Do you know that people in other states pay to drive on fucking freeways? On the east coast that's really normal. Turnpike: maybe you've heard of it? It's not just a dance move on "Jersey Shore."
You know why your bridge costs so much fucking money? Do you want a fucking engineering lesson? Here you fucking go. Most bridges are causeway bridges or suspension bridges. These are pretty fucking stable structures. The bridges that cross Lake Washington are fucking pontoon, or fucking floating, bridges. Let my good friend fucking Wikipedia speak: "The Evergreen Point, Lacey V. Murrow, and [Third] Lake Washington bridges are the longest, second longest, and fifth longest floating bridges in the world, respectively."
Wow! Lake Washington is like the floating fucking bridge capital of the world! That's so weird! Why might that fucking be? Why aren't there more fucking pontoon bridges elsewhere? Because they require constant maintenance, that's why. They're fucking hollow blocks of concrete anchored in bottom muck and stapled together, drifting around on a glacial fucking lake in a city where we had a 6.8 fucking earthquake in 2001. These things start falling apart the second they're built.
Well, why do those fucking morons keep building fucking pontoon bridges? It is you, sir, who are the fucking moron.
Lake Washington isn't just any fucking lake. It's really fucking deep. It's 214 feet deep. Go find a 214-foot building, stand on the roof, and look down. Maybe you're so fucking ignorant you have no idea how deep the average lake is and you're not impressed. Whatever. You should be. The average lake is nowhere near that fucking deep.
My point is that you can't sink in supports for a suspension bridge over a lake that deep unless you have billions of fucking dollars to spend. And we all know by now that you are not willing to hand over billions of fucking dollars. You whine hard enough about a fucking toll. (What is it, six dollars? Boo hoo! Your Starbucks order went from fucking venti to fucking grande.)
That fucking lake was carved by a fucking glacier and carved down halfway to hell. You know how it's so fucking cold that when you try to swim in it you have to get out after fifteen minutes because your feet are going fucking numb, no matter how hot a day it is? That's because there's so much fucking water in that lake it's STILL warming up from when it was a fucking glacier. The greater the volume of water, the longer it takes to warm. Think about how fucking long ago that thing was a glacier. Ice age: maybe you've heard of it? It's not just a movie with a neurotic white weasel.
So Lake Washington's too deep (and soft-bottomed, but I'm afraid further information will leave you hopelessly fucking confused) to support a suspension bridge and too wide for a causeway bridge. That leaves one option. One fucking expensive option. So we built it. Then you assholes thought that meant that you were supposed to cross that lake every fucking day instead of a few times a year, and more of you started doing the east/west work/home thing, so we had to extend the first one. And build afuckingnother one.
Taxpayers paid for all that. Taxpayers who may well have decided NOT to live on the opposite side of a glacial fucking lake from where they work because they don't believe that's fucking sustainable. Some of us tread a lot more lightly on the fucking planet than you do. Whatever. I managed not to fucking whine about it. That's possible, you know: to be irritated by something and not fucking whine about it.
Now we're up to floating bridge number FOUR, in its early construction phase. And finally, FINALLY, the jackwagons who made all this bullshit necessary have to pay for it via a toll on 520.
HALLEFUCKINGLUJAH. Enjoy driving across your new fucking pontoon bridge. You won't, though. You'll be soooo mad because it takes soooo long to get to work on the opposite side of a glacial fucking lake. Oh look, you've been stopped on 520 so long that you're taking pictures of the ass-end of the car in front of you and posting them on Facebook with another tiresome, snotty rant about traffic, as if you weren't part of the problem.
Get another house. Get another fucking job. I don't care. Just shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
Postscript: Please note who this open letter is addressed to. Make sure you fit ALL the named criteria ("decided," "endlessly") before you determine this MUST fucking be about you personally. I am pretty much never talking about you personally.