 It probably would have been shorter if not for the abundance of road
construction going on. It seems the entire state of Pennsylvania is
in a constant state of construction. It's never really been "done."
The license plates in Pennsylvania should have been changed from the
Keystone State to the State of Perpetual Construction.There were
eight occupants of our motor home in the State of Perpetual
Construction ... and we were all bored. Strange things happen when
people are bored.
A simple sign on the side of the interstate can provoke absurd
conversations. My oldest son saw one that read "Workers Ahead -- 50
MPH." His first thought, being that he is a scientist, was that the
outcome would be pretty much the same if you were to hit a worker at
50 mph as opposed to, say, 75 mph. Why did they bother slowing
everybody down?
My other son had the answer, albeit, not a good one: "The
difference is in the number of pieces they'd have to pick up."
Construction workers of America, we honored you by smacking him
upside the head for that.
The conversation took a swift turn before that awful image could
sink in, and they began talking about the effects of an airborne
construction barrel on the occupants of a motor home should said
barrel penetrate the windshield.
How about a construction cone? Or a shovel? A rogue chuteful of
uncured cement?
We discussed the merits of driving on the left or the right when
a lane shift occurred in a construction zone. The right side has
more room should another vehicle cut you off. But, it was argued, in
the left lane your vehicle will only swerve as far as the cement
barrier. It would then be left on the road scraped, upright and
possibly wheezing. But it would be in one piece, as would the
occupants.
[to top of second column]
 |
Depending on what section of road you are on when the cut-off
occurs, that may be a better scenario than what would happen in the
right lane if you were say, on a bridge ... a really high bridge ...
or a mountain. Many of the highway signs read "Use Caution" when
describing an abnormal construction situation. Abnormal for anywhere
but Pennsylvania, that is. What if we already used all of our
caution? What if we ran out of caution 150 miles back? What then?
Pennsylvania ought to give out free caution at their rest stops,
which are, incidentally, also under construction. I mean, we
shouldn't be expected to use all of our caution in just one state,
should we? That's not fair to all of the other states we'd have to
drive through.
The drive home was long, so the talk eventually turned to how we
could all finagle another day off work.
The excuses were tossed around with increasing creativeness.
"Sorry boss, we ran into some traffic and can't make it back
tonight."
"My mother's having a baby today. No, we didn't know she was
pregnant either."
"A motorcycle drove off a bridge right into the kitchen of our
motor home. We had to bungee-cord the two halves together and call a
helicopter to airlift the motorcycle out of our kitchen. Yeah, so
... I'm not going to make it in tomorrow."
"Pennsylvania is making us go 50 mph to reduce the risk of
airborne or dismembered workers. That's right. So, it's going to
take at least another day to get to another state."
[By LAURA SNYDER]
You can reach the writer at
lsnyder@lauraonlife.com
Or visit www.lauraonlife.com
for more columns and info about her books.
 |
