What if it turned out that yesterday, and today, were the good old days?

What if, starting next week, the relatively lazy, hazy days of summer you’ve been enjoying (unless your hobby is politics) come to a screeching halt.

What if your commute, which has been easy (or easier) this month, suddenly reverts to a replay of “Road Warrior” or “Mad Max 2”, with you as one of the freaks squashed by Mel Gibson?

We’re talking traffic. And not just in the Washington, D.C., area which, once again, won the honor of having the worst traffic in America.

Things are tough in D.C. what with our traffic circles (thank you Pierre L’Enfant), too few Potomac River bridges, and Beltway.  Add to that,  a high concentration of people who — although they’ve been here 20, 30 or 40 years — still haven’t reconciled to the fact that they aren’t in Kansas (or wherever) anymore.

D.C. is not alone in bracing for a government surge next week. There are lots of places — Ogden, Utah; Marion, Illinois;  Huntsville, Alabama;  Covington, Kentucky; Norfolk, Virginia; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Minot, North Dakota and Leavenworth, Kansas, to name a few — where Uncle Sam is a (or the) primary employer. And where the end of August signals a return to normalcy.  Which can be pretty awful and crowded.

In the D.C. area, things will get even worse when Congress returns — after its lengthy Labor Day break.  It will have only a few working days (because it has taken so many vacation days) before the Oct. 1 start of the new fiscal year.  Pesky chores like funding the government for the next 12 months, the debt ceiling limit and the possibility of another shutdown will have to be dealt with. Or punted into the new fiscal year with a series of short-term continuing resolution (stopgap funding) bills.

Among the issues at stake is how much, if anything, of a raise non-postal feds will get in January.  The odds-on favorite amount is 1.3 percent. But that is assuming there is a raise, and before the issue of how (if at all) it will be parceled out in city-by-city locality pay adjustments.

If you stayed home during August, congratulations. Smart move, whatever your reasons.  If you didn’t you don’t know what you missed. Either way, the ” fun”, with a capital F, starts all over again on Monday.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michael O’Connell

Swedish actor and producer Kjell Nilsson portrayed The Humungus in “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior”.

Source: IMDB

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