Big Truck Heaven
Jul. 29th, 2009 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodyrosemccoyIt’s driveway-tearing-out day!
For years, our driveway has been “flat.” This means that every time it rains, a giant puddle gathers in the middle of it, leaking into the garage sometimes. Normally this isn’t a big deal, since around here puddles don’t last too long after the rain, but summer’s been soggy this year, and we’re worried about mosquitos spawning, stale water, crocodiles breeding and biting off our feet, etc..
So today, we’re ripping out the driveway and getting a new onewith BLACKJACK! And HOOKERS! that will have drainage and be slanted. It’s actually kind of interesting to watch them work.
And if you’re the four-year-old across the street, it’s positively enthralling.
This kid is all about trucks and heavy equipment. He’s got multiple DVDs about garbage trucks and fire trucks and lumberyards, and every single Tonka truck ever made in the last ten years,* and he knows more about trucks than I do.** Little guy has truck wallpaper and construction equipment pajamas and racetracks and bulldozer-themed dishes.
And then a whole bunch of trucks and construction equipment shows up across the street.
It’s a little like if I was four and I found out mermaids lived in the driveway puddle.
Yeah, so he showed up on our porch today in a hard hat with his Sesame Street toolbelt and plastic battery-powered jackhammer, a look of total awe on his face as he watched the driveway guys spreading gravel around and drive big old Black Cats around.
I gotta admit, I sympathize. Engineering is kind of hypnotic, even through my car-blindness. Except, with me, I keep scanning the equipment looking for Autobot or Decepticon symbols, so perhaps it’s not quite the same for me as for the kid.
Lucky him. He’s fine with the stuff that’s actually there.
*The plastic kind. Which are fine and good because they don’t become lumps of rust like our metal ones did, but which are not nearly so satisfyingly, you know, metallic.
**Okay, this isn’t really hard. As I’ve said in the past, I am car-blind. I classify them using the Go, Dog, Go! method: big cars, little cars, black cars, white cars. And that extends to trucks.
For years, our driveway has been “flat.” This means that every time it rains, a giant puddle gathers in the middle of it, leaking into the garage sometimes. Normally this isn’t a big deal, since around here puddles don’t last too long after the rain, but summer’s been soggy this year, and we’re worried about mosquitos spawning, stale water, crocodiles breeding and biting off our feet, etc..
So today, we’re ripping out the driveway and getting a new one
And if you’re the four-year-old across the street, it’s positively enthralling.
This kid is all about trucks and heavy equipment. He’s got multiple DVDs about garbage trucks and fire trucks and lumberyards, and every single Tonka truck ever made in the last ten years,* and he knows more about trucks than I do.** Little guy has truck wallpaper and construction equipment pajamas and racetracks and bulldozer-themed dishes.
And then a whole bunch of trucks and construction equipment shows up across the street.
It’s a little like if I was four and I found out mermaids lived in the driveway puddle.
Yeah, so he showed up on our porch today in a hard hat with his Sesame Street toolbelt and plastic battery-powered jackhammer, a look of total awe on his face as he watched the driveway guys spreading gravel around and drive big old Black Cats around.
I gotta admit, I sympathize. Engineering is kind of hypnotic, even through my car-blindness. Except, with me, I keep scanning the equipment looking for Autobot or Decepticon symbols, so perhaps it’s not quite the same for me as for the kid.
Lucky him. He’s fine with the stuff that’s actually there.
*The plastic kind. Which are fine and good because they don’t become lumps of rust like our metal ones did, but which are not nearly so satisfyingly, you know, metallic.
**Okay, this isn’t really hard. As I’ve said in the past, I am car-blind. I classify them using the Go, Dog, Go! method: big cars, little cars, black cars, white cars. And that extends to trucks.
