Remember way back last November, when I shared the tale of our parking lot resurfacing at work? How I had erroneously assumed that our whole parking lot was getting a fresh coat of blacktop, and all we got was crumbly asphalt (and I use that term loosely, because it sure had the color of dirt in some places) poured into cracks and not even tamped down?
You may also recall how we had a snow day last week, on The Pony's birthday. A snow day that left plowed snow piled up along the end of that parking lot. So when we pulled in to park on Tuesday morning, I told The Pony, "Looks like they got almost as much snow here as we had at home. There's proof. They plowed the lot."
"I know," said The Pony. Dryly. "I can see chunks of the patch job in it. And look," he said as he stepped off the running board. "The cracks are empty."
Indeed, they were. And they will soon be deeper, what with nothing inside them, except for melted snow and rainwater to fill them and expand while freezing overnight.
Two days later, all the snow along the end of the parking lot had melted. Those chunks of never-congealed blacktop lay in an irregular row along the edge of the pavement where the snow had been, like till left behind by a glacier.
No charge for the science lesson. Val was feeling especially teachery this evening.
You must be teaching us a lesson because you were upset about the snow day.
ReplyDeleteHopefully, we are the same eager, empty vessels, yearning to be filled with knowledge... just like your students.
Yes, I was upset that I missed my 7th day of school due to snow. So I decided to take it out on you by teaching you about mechanical weathering in the form of glaciers and frost-wedging.
DeleteSadly, it seems as if one of the empty vessels, when filled...leaks like a sieve.
Sounds like time and money was wasted by not doing a thorough job. Now it will need to be done all over again.
ReplyDeleteI hope they wait until next school year! None of that parking at the end of the earth for me.
DeleteLike flushing money down the toilet.
ReplyDeleteBut flushing money down the toilet doesn't kick me out of my parking lot to park at the end of the earth. At the very worst, it kicks me out of the bathroom until the flushing is done. Our school outhouses are not one-holers, you know.
DeleteWorse than getting what you pay for. A crap job which will probably be fixed by more crap. Kind of the way school supplies are financed. And educators payrolls. I have more to say but my soap box just fell apart. Crap.
ReplyDeleteIf you know how to repair your soap box, thank a teacher.
DeleteI saw five guys FIVE! Filling and tamping one small hole.
ReplyDeleteMust have been a government job.
DeleteI don't get it. The crumbly asphalt looked like some glacier left a till behind. Is that what joeh means by flushing money down the toilet? Am I not getting enough sleep?
ReplyDeleteI guess you need to stop sleeping under a glacier or with your head in a toilet.
DeleteWe rented space in a building in Minnesota from a man who declared that he was crazy and had the papers to prove it. One day we came to work to find half the parking lot taped off, the landlord said he was putting new blacktop on. What he did was mix all the paint from all the cans he had stacked up over time and use it to coat the parking lot. Latex paint. He was baffled when the rain washed it away and I no longer needed to see his "papers". Maybe he was the one who did your parking lot ....
ReplyDeleteHe would have done a better job if he stuffed his "crazy papers" in the cracks.
Delete