Wednesday, June 25, 2003

It was the largest I had ever seen the creek, and still they stood around. I was afraid that at some point that body of water, which before had seemed so harmless (like a thread running through the heart of the neighborhood), would actually creep up the hill and swallow my house. And still they just stood around.

They talked on their cell phones, stared at the spouting geyser-like main that had broken, ogled the gigantic hole in the road and dispassionately glanced at the monster threatening at least two houses, the gathering evocative of a traditional Southern shindig.

At least they put out roadblocks. But only after some Samaritan stood out in the road in the early hours of the morning actually turning away traffic, averting inevitable wrecks.

The 911 dispatcher, whom the altruist called upon seeing the ridiculously out-of-place chasm, simply called the Road Department. After all, a miniature Grand Canyon in the middle of the road during peak hours was no cause for worry.

So no one came, the little road wasn't quite important enough. So again the dispatcher was called (no doubt by now conjuring up remembrances of that Lily Tomlin sketch where she plays the simple but engagingly quirky switchboard operator) and (disturbingly) had to be told straight out that the situation was a genuine emergency.

I wonder now what it would have been like if no one had called, no one had cared or no one had come (for one, we wouldn't have those amusingly decorative orange and white road blocks). I wonder just how many cars could have actually fit in the hole before they started sliding ever so deathly slow towards the swollen creek? I wonder how many firemen it would have taken, how many reporters? Tourist dollars?

It was rather bemusing to see those city workers loitering about the hole, bored with the wait for contractors and machinery, the entire ordeal reminiscent of a possible trip to the Olduvi Gorge and Old Faithful. Two for the price of one, right in the heart of Fayetteville.

This, from the looks on their faces from my window, could have been the most action they had seen in a long while. Not long, however, can be spent peering with any interest at an overblown pothole and tidal creek by way of a lacerated main.

If their minds' perception wasn't excitement and curiosity, than perhaps it was simply confusion, bafflement and tedium. It's a fair distance from my window to the road. But at least they put out the roadblocks. God bless those orange and white roadblocks!

Dixie Eska-Thedra

Fayetteville