Phil Elmore
Master of Arts
I am in the wrong business.
What I should be doing is wearing a blaze orange jumper over my tanned and prematurely cancerous skin as I stand by the side of the road digging holes in it for no apparent reason. I want to do this because I miss my childhood.
Working road construction, you see, is exactly like Nursery School. You go there every day according to a set schedule, but it doesn't really matter if you miss a day because no one has any defined responsibilities. Your relatives know that you go there and that you're supposed to be doing something, but they're not really sure exactly what that might be. As long as you look busy when they come to pick you up at the end of the day, they figure you spent your time productively.
Have you seen those guys working road construction with that metal wheel on the end of a stick? Looks official and scientific, doesn't it? Don't know what they're doing with that wheel on a stick, do you? I'll tell you why -- it's because that wheel on a stick is the equivalent of that plastic bubble on wheels with the moving, popping, colored plastic pieces in it that is also on a stick. You used to push that thing around in Nursery School to watch the plastic pieces inside the bubble move around, but the toy didn't really do anything. That wheel on a stick doesn't really do anything, either -- it must makes the operator look busy.
When you're a kid in Nursery School they teach you that no matter what you do, everything is okay as long as you say you're sorry. You're, what, four years old? Nobody's going to hold you accountable, even if you stab Alex Devins in the face with a pencil while pretending to sword fight with Ticonderoga Number 2s, as long as you show remorse while they're taking Alex off to the Nurse.
When you work construction, it doesn't matter how much you tear up the road inexplicably, how much you delay everyone, or where you set detours that get people lost in exactly those areas lacking easily divined alternate routes. No, as long as you put out orange cones, you've apologized to the world for your idiocy. Nobody will hold you accountable. After all, you've got cones and you don't know any better, and boy do you look busy out there in the hot sun.
End Construction, Thank You For Your Patience.
What I should be doing is wearing a blaze orange jumper over my tanned and prematurely cancerous skin as I stand by the side of the road digging holes in it for no apparent reason. I want to do this because I miss my childhood.
Working road construction, you see, is exactly like Nursery School. You go there every day according to a set schedule, but it doesn't really matter if you miss a day because no one has any defined responsibilities. Your relatives know that you go there and that you're supposed to be doing something, but they're not really sure exactly what that might be. As long as you look busy when they come to pick you up at the end of the day, they figure you spent your time productively.
Have you seen those guys working road construction with that metal wheel on the end of a stick? Looks official and scientific, doesn't it? Don't know what they're doing with that wheel on a stick, do you? I'll tell you why -- it's because that wheel on a stick is the equivalent of that plastic bubble on wheels with the moving, popping, colored plastic pieces in it that is also on a stick. You used to push that thing around in Nursery School to watch the plastic pieces inside the bubble move around, but the toy didn't really do anything. That wheel on a stick doesn't really do anything, either -- it must makes the operator look busy.
When you're a kid in Nursery School they teach you that no matter what you do, everything is okay as long as you say you're sorry. You're, what, four years old? Nobody's going to hold you accountable, even if you stab Alex Devins in the face with a pencil while pretending to sword fight with Ticonderoga Number 2s, as long as you show remorse while they're taking Alex off to the Nurse.
When you work construction, it doesn't matter how much you tear up the road inexplicably, how much you delay everyone, or where you set detours that get people lost in exactly those areas lacking easily divined alternate routes. No, as long as you put out orange cones, you've apologized to the world for your idiocy. Nobody will hold you accountable. After all, you've got cones and you don't know any better, and boy do you look busy out there in the hot sun.
End Construction, Thank You For Your Patience.