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[pmcd9]

Have you passed under this bridge JL?

[jaydub]

The first Ryder driver was all, "Can't stop now, I've got places to be."

I'll bet 90% of those drivers didn't even see the height warning (inattentive, the signage is fine), and the remainder (jury-rigged pickup, rental trucks) didn't think about the clearance their rig required.

[AugustWest]

I opened this thread expecting Omar Sharif or Charles Goren.

[side_show]

I'm just glad we haven't started playing contract bridge.  Come on people.  We are not that old yet.  

[pmcd9]

While discussing this bridge on Facebook we began speculating on how they could make it safer. Someone suggested that they should put a warning line across the road, with something non rigid like chains hanging down and a sign that says if you hit these chains you will hit the bridge.

Instead they have installed a huge I-beam in front of the bridge. That's what those trucks are actually hitting, not the bridge itself. It's kinda the opposite approach, it's daring trucks to run into it.

[AugustWest]

I'm just glad we haven't started playing contractr bridge.  Come on people.  We are not that old yet. 

I used to play contract bridge, 15 years ago.  But I grew out of it.

[jay-ell]

Hey, I am so late to this party! I have probably driven under this bridge at some point but I don't venture into Durham much so I can't say for sure.

We do have an unusually low-clearance parking deck in Raleigh that has a warning beam in front of it (not a heavy I-beam but just such as a heavy aluminum beam a good few yards from the actual entrance). That seems safer to me.

If I ever do encounter this bridge, though, I will be sure to think of you as I drive under it in my decidedly-shorter-than-11'8" minivan.

My favorite was the truck full of construction materials that was being followed by another similarly loaded truck, who saw his buddy nail the I-beam and then decided to try it anyway.

[KeithHernandez]

That was totally the best and also I think hay.  I only know this cause I've made and transported hay.

[side_show]

I used to play contract bridge, 15 years ago.  But I grew out of it.

Were you taught by a grandparent?  The only people I've ever known to play contract bridge were large groups of elderly people (mostly in care homes) and this one friend who liked to think of himself as a genius, but mostly was just a guy who got off on feeling superior due to knowing a lot about things most people didn't know much about.

[miles]

There's something so satisfying about the ones where the top is peeled back like the bridge is opening a can of sardines.

[wombat]

I knew how to play bridge briefly when I was in high school, when we had a week of mini-courses on any topics the students wanted. It is a complete mystery to me at this point why anyone wanted to take or teach such a thing, nor why I took it.

[AugustWest]

Were you taught by a grandparent?  The only people I've ever known to play contract bridge were large groups of elderly people (mostly in care homes) and this one friend who liked to think of himself as a genius, but mostly was just a guy who got off on feeling superior due to knowing a lot about things most people didn't know much about.

I was taught by my Grandmother and my parents.  I think bridge was very very popular during the 40s and 50s, so there's a very definite, aging, demographic where it's very prevalent.

We had group of 4 lawyers who.  We met once a week and played at each others houses.  It was fun.

[KeithHernandez]

I'm sure I've said this before, but my racist republican (alcoholic) grandfather taught me how to play dominos when I was about 15.  By the time I was 20 I was using my domino skills to get free cocaine and fit in in a largely black crack/coke house.

Thanks grandpa?  I don't think he woulda liked it, but I had a good time.  See, me and the homeowner would be on a team and as long as we kept winning and beating his friends the blow kept coming.  I don't lose ever (I am saying I am crazy competitive, not that I don't actually lose) especially not all pumped up like that, so it worked out nicely.  Also, the world is a complex place so I can love my granddad and also think he was a racist asshole who I got back at (just a little) by using what he taught me to make the world a slightly less segregated place.

[pmcd9]

I used to play dominoes with the guys in the warehouse during lunch break. The black guys were far and away the best players.

[Pedro Picasso]

That shit was fun. You just had to be able to deal with smack talk, noise and people threatening your motherfuck*ng life. Good damn times.

Thanks for that story. Stories like this are why I'm so obsessed with games. Little simulations of life that make your real life more valuable.