Road Woes

The entire area where we live is experiencing improvement. So to speak.

Our street was ground down to the bricks and then resurfaced. It looks wonderful and is a joy to drive on.

The main drag to get to our street was completely destroyed, rebuilt, destroyed again for unknown reasons and then rebuilt.

Almost all of the side streets around us are undergoing grinding, repaving as well as getting new curbs. The little road that I think of as my fast escape route out of our neighborhood looks like a missile testing site right now. It's getting new water lines. (I really felt for the family who had to put up with a port-a-potty on their tree lawn over there. Today I noticed it was moved across the street to the cemetary's tree lawn. I'm sure the dead are handling this much better than the living.)

We are into week six of this project. Throughout all of this, I've tried to keep a sunny disposition. It will all be worth it when the roads and curbs are shiny and new. Property values will soar. Crime levels will fall. Peace on Earth will be achieved.

Okay. So maybe that's asking a lot of blacktop and concrete.

But today I have cracked. Today I'm really ready for these guys to be gone. Today I've had enough of being detoured around and the whole world smelling like pitch. This simple resurfacing job should just be a bad memory by now. But today, it all started all over again! Look at this map. This is what it looks like out there right now!
They are jackhammering huge holes in the roads around all of the manholes. They are digging up even more curbs. They are putting down another coat of blacktop on roads that we thought were done. They are everywhere at once surrounding us and pinning us in.

We are prisoners on our own street. And if we can get away, dodging huge filth-spewing trucks and grumpy workers in day-glo vests brandishing stop signs, then we can't get back to our own driveways when we return. I've had to park around the corner and walk home more than once.

I've tried to be understanding. I've tried to be grateful for the much needed roadwork. But enough is enough. It's time to show them where to put their orange barrels.