You know the feeling. You want to buy an omelet, but the thought of paying $10.75 for breakfast makes you never want to eat again. You want to buy a drink, but you think about paying $4.75 for another pint, and you're already drunk.

Since I'm not independently wealthy and I don't work for the state, rent day means it's Shredded Wheat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For me and the dog.

All that fiber makes a man's mind wander, and makes a beagle gnaw on that man's ankles. But I'm not crazy enough to think there's ever going to be affordable housing in Juneau for young people.

And I'm definitely not so detached from reality that I can earnestly envision a scenario sometime in the next 20 years wherein Juneau Access or a second channel crossing "opens up land" for reasonably priced apartments and homes.

That was one of the hot topics at last Thursday's Juneau Chamber of Commerce luncheon, where the four candidates for Assembly gathered to share their grandiose visions of the future.

Some people believe a second bridge to Douglas will create more access to land on the west side of the island, trigger a boom in the development of affordable homes and help plug the brain drain that siphons Juneau's young to the Lower 48.

I'd like to believe in the inherent goodness of real-estate men, but what developer is going to go through the permitting process, fend off environmental protests and concerned North Douglas homeowners, create flat plots out of sloping, wetland rain forest and offer the property to low-income or middle-income tenants?

More likely is that a small cabal of developers will make a trillion dollars, wealthy homeowners will build really nice balconies, and the handful of 20-somethings left in town will still be house-sitting, living three to a room or paying $650 for an efficiency.

Stop dangling long-term road projects as a catch-all carrot to cure economic dystopia. It's fantasy, and a slap in the face to people who need an affordable place to live now, rather than 20 years from now.