The Charlotte Observer hosts a limerick competition every year that runs from Saint Patrick’s Day to April 1st. They call it their “Politics & Public Policy Limericks Contest.” This year the paper encouraged entries lampooning the presidential campaign, but the current campaign is so bizarre and depressing, I just couldn’t imagine making a humorous rhyme about it. So instead, I decided to write limericks about local disasters.

The editors published my limerick on Charlotte’s I-77 toll lanes controversy. The public hates the idea of paying tolls, but there’s the added sting of a Spanish company (?!?) building the lanes and keeping all the profits they generate. Weird, huh? But so ripe for ridicule! From the Charlotte Observer editorial page:

It wasn’t all presidential politics, though. Give Mike Tuggle bonus degree-of-difficulty points for rhyming the word ‘criteria’ and going the foreign language route to finish his piece about the Interstate 77 toll lanes:

I can’t understand the criteria

That mandate toll lanes from Iberia.

The gain from those lanes

Stays mainly in Spain.

It’s Charlotte’s camino mysteria.

Stay tuned for future satirical entries in the coming weeks. Yes, I live in a target-rich environment.