The Muddled Male

You Say What???

By Bob Stevens, The Muddled Male

        My mother used to worry a lot about my friends during my teenage years.  Not because she was uppity, mind you, but because she was convinced that we become like those with whom we associate, and she didn’t want me to take on the characteristics of someone she felt might be marching to the beat of a wayward drummer, so to speak.  She was particularly concerned about one friend I had who was older than me and smoked, cussed, and had little if any ambition.  I tried to convince her that I wasn’t interested in any of those things about which she worried.  I just liked being around him because he was fun.  I’m afraid that failed to reassure her.  Well if she were here now I am certain that she would be pleased to find out that I have been hanging out with my friend the professor.  Mother always wanted me to have an advanced degree, and now I am getting one through the process of osmoses by association.  At least I thought I was before UDOT began to chip and seal parts of highway 89.

        I don’t know about you, but I have become convinced that adding a chip and seal surface to our roads is a process designed by the windshield replacement industry specifically to make certain that I will personally have to replace my windshield often enough to single handedly keep the industry in business.  Now through my osmoses relationship with my friend the professor I understand that there is such a thing as randomness in life.  But my experience with chip and seal goes way beyond randomness.  In the last three or four years I have had four windshields damaged in a way that they had to be replaced rather than fixed.  A simple chip in a windshield is usually fixable.  You pull into one of those spots where a pretty girl sits under a shade awning waiting for some poor soul to come by with a chip in his or her windshield where a rock has hit.  She applies a little clear resin with a device that forces the resin into the chip, and like magic the chip disappears and the resin holds everything together so that the windshield won’t crack from the chip.  But when a small rock hits close to the edge of a windshield it instantly causes a crack that works its way across, or up and down the windshield (or both) so that it can’t be repaired, it must be replaced.  Chip and seal has caused me to need four cracked windshields replaced on my car(s) in the last four years because, in my case, the small pebble always hits close to the edge of the glass and initiates a crack.  That, in case you wondered, is not randomness, it is demonic.  The last two times occurred within two weeks of having the windshield replaced from the previous crack and now my insurance company refers to me by my first name in cold icy tones whenever I call to report another crack.

        The part where I had hoped to get help from my friend the professor has to do with his ability to explain things in clear, concise, and understandable terms.  When he explains something I am always amazed at the articulate manner in which the explanation is given.  It is almost like a mathematical equation in which the answer is obvious and easy to understand.  But in the case of the sign that the chip and seal contractor carefully places at each end of the project in a way that makes certain that it will be seen by oncoming traffic, the professor has been silent.  Can anybody tell me what the #@%<*>~$! is meant by a sign that says, Loose Gravel …. Avoid Windshield Damage? I have tried avoiding the area until the seal is sprayed, the gravel is laid, loose gravel is swept up, and a second layer of seal is sprayed to hold down any remaining loose rocks, but there is always a stray rock left to hit my windshield.  I have tried to drive slowly through the area only to be hit by a rock thrown by an oncoming truck or some dingbat who is in a hurry and goes around me at high speed to make certain he gets to his destination 20-seconds sooner.

        I say, “Citizens Unite.”  If you see a seal truck coming, throw yourself prostrate on the road in front of the truck in an attempt to stop it.  If they just keep coming and run over you while they spray you with black tar don’t worry.  They will be by in a few minutes to encase you in gravel so that you will be a visible monument to our willingness to resist.  And by the way, if you see my car coming as you lay there, please try to brush any loose rocks out of the way so that they won’t hit my windshield.