I’d like to personally extend a heart-felt fuck you to the Asshat Construction Company that somehow managed to find a way to keep the Beltway closed until 6:30 on a Monday morning. What project manager decided that was a good idea? Did you somehow miss the eight goddamn miles of traffic that backed up while you were still on site? Did you think the massed phalanxes of headlights were a glowing tribute to your job well done?

Now, I understand the Wilson Bridge is a choke point on 495 at the very best of times. On weekends and during rush hour it has a tendency to become something of a slowly rolling parking lot. Oh, there was a detour; a detour in the form of shunting southbound traffic from a four-lane highway onto an exit ramp and then back onto the highway via the accompanying entrance ramp. Someone apparently forgot to go to class the day they were teaching traffic planning at engineer school.

I understand the company will be fined $50 per minute for the delay, for a whopping total of $4500. I could have a little more respect for this kind of punishment if the fine were even $500/minute. To a firm of that size, a $4500 fine is something akin to keeping $1 from junior’s allowance this week. Sure, he’ll notice at the time, but a week from now he’ll have forgotten about whatever it was that he had gotten in trouble for in the first place.

For those of my readers living in Western Maryland, I want you to imagine taking a drive from Hancock to Frostburg with the heaviest traffic you have every seen… I mean literally bumper to bumper, moving a few feet per minute with the occasional breakout to 5 miles per hour. Imagine this backup started at Rocky Gap. Now imagine that the cross-town bridge was closed and every bit of traffic from 68 was being diverted through downtown Cumberland and the Narrows into LaVale. Now imagine the total drive took you three hours. That should roughly approximate my morning.

Mr. Project Manager, congratulations! You’ve won the first ever Asshat of the Week Award. I’ll see you in hell.