Road Construction

Just a quickie-- I'm leaving for Orlando on Wednesday morning--at asscrack Wednesday morning--and while I'm excited about the trip, I am, as always, buttfuck behind.

Seriously-- I started packing my knitting tonight, which means I'll think I'm all ready to go tomorrow and suddenly be shoving half my inventory into an overnight bag in case I get captured for 2-3 years and forced to knit for twelve hours a day.

Send handpainted Merino! I might be facing yarn pirates!

Anyway--

All that intro to lead into this story.

Which is terrible.

Chicken is taking classes in anticipation of getting her teaching degree--right now it's World Mythology which makes me super jealous because she's OBLIGATED (HAHAHAHAHAHA) to read and study world mythology, which is one of my favorite things.

Anyway...

She gets out around nine in the morning twice a week, then comes over to my house to go walk the dogs with me and, of course, get coffee.

The walks are always my favorite thing--she's great company--and it doesn't help that she flatters mom a little ("Mom, I swear to God, I needed you to come give your archetypes seminar to this guy because he was not getting it!") but this morning was a little rushed. She doesn't usually work Mondays but she did today, and I had to get home in time for her to take off.

Anyway, we've been having road construction on our street.

Now my street is a little known passage between two thoroughfares--with a couple of non-obvious turns, it can used as  a short cut as long as you don't speed because the speed tables will gut your car like filleting knife. For the last six months there has been MAJOR construction on one of the thoroughfares--right at the end of our street.

It's insane.

Our street isn't that big, and it's falling apart because of all the heavy machinery, and what they're doing (installing sidewalks) often means we're practically on the wrong side of the road while someone is trying to exit onto the street through a construction zone.

This is the street I go down to pick up/drop off kids every day.

There's a detour that doesn't take too long, but unless they set the big sign on OUR side of the dip, sometimes our only warning is a blocked road.

So, pain in the ass. Yes.

The other end of the street has no sidewalks, one streetlamp, and drop off gutters. Yeah, if you didn't know we lived deep in the heart of strip mall country, it would look damned rural. (We're the white trash family who let our lawn die. Now you know.)

Anyway--

We went for a walk, I remembered to take the detour back--the quick one that didn't make me double back--and as we were entering the narrow end of the road--the side NOT backed up against Sunrise Blvd. with all its insane road construction, I could see another road crew setting up.

ANOTHER ROAD CREW on the OTHER END of the street, which essentially means there's one way out and it's through a bloody fucking labyrinth.

So out of nowhere as Chicken was feeding the dogs their morning McSnack, I blurt out, "Jesus fucking Christ! More bloody fucking road construction? Our poor street is getting fucked at both ends--it's a goddamned spit roast!"

There was a moment of stunned silence. We both swear--a lot--but this was excessive even by our standards.

"Uh, spit roasted," I said into the silence. "It's a porn term."

"I know what spit roasting is, Mom."

I pulled to a stop in front of our house and looked at her, and we both burst out laughing.

And now we're gonna have that image in our heads forever, and I guess that's okay.

I mean, it's like the road construction--it's not like we've got any choice.