LMNOP

Back when I was commuting to Tysons Corner every day, I subscribed to an alert system that would send me a personalized e-mail whenever there was particularly bad traffic on my travel route.  Now, the trip to Tysons Corner is horrible on a good day, so you can only imagine what "particularly bad" signifies; it basically means a dead Tyrannosaurus Rex is covering all lanes of the Beltway in both directions, and scientists have decided that the best way to move it involves toothpicks and fishing wire.  (This happens more than you would think.)

So anyway, even though I quit that job over a year ago for one with a much shorter commute, I have yet to unsubscribe to my e-mail alerts for Tysons Corner traffic.  It is very easy to unsubscribe--you just have to click a link--but I have avoided doing so because I actually like getting those e-mail alerts every now and then as a reminder of the traffic I don't have to deal with.  This either means that I am a total crazy, or that Beltway traffic is so horrible it makes otherwise normal people do crazy things, like continue subscribing to a service that is no longer useful in order to continue receiving, once every two or three weeks, the slight feeling of triumph that comes from knowing you are taking an extra couple of minutes on your hair while all those other suckers sit on 495, hating life and wondering how they will get the T-rex splatter off the hoods of their cars.