Bridging the gap between lawmakers and cockroaches

A bridge not far enough: State and federal officials are considering a temporary fix to span the Skagit River at Mount Vernon after Thursday’s collapse of I-5’s four-lane bridge. Built in 1955, the bridge was classified by the state as “functionally obsolete.”

Our Bureaucratese-to-English Dictionary defines “functionally obsolete” as “can be taken out by a truck with an oversize load.”

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What about the gap between their ears? State lawmakers who have their portraits taken every two years for use online and in publications have been requesting a little Photoshop retouching to mask wrinkles, erase blemishes and even close a gap between teeth.

Recognizing the looming cost of replacing the I-5 bridge over the Skagit River, legislators — rather than paying the estimated $15 million to replace it — proposed touching up a photo of it to close the gap between Mount Vernon and Burlington.

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Vacancy at the Roach Motel: Research has discovered that the lowly cockroach has evolved in a matter of decades to consider the glucose-sweetened bait in traps as bitter. Sweetened traps are no longer luring roaches to their deaths as they had 20 years ago.

Checking the Cockroach-to-English Dictionary, “human intellect” is now defined as “functionally obsolete.”

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