An Open Letter to PENNDOT

Dear Pennsylvania Department of Transit:

I must have been hallucinating on Saturday.

Because it was... oh... two or three weeks ago already now that the evening news told us how you were done with roadwork on the Parkway East for the year.

Done until next spring, when you would once again regularly close one of the major highways that connect we East side folks to the rest of the city.

Or to Monroeville Mall.

Or to, say, the Turnpike.

So I know I must have been hallucinating over the weekend. Because I could have sworn I saw roadcrews all along the in-bound Parkway on Saturday. I saw road cones taking up two lanes of the three lane highway. I was so positive I saw cars backed up almost to Penn Hills by late afternoon.

I must have been imagining the men under the bridges, then. And the cranes. And the giant piles of freshly dug up dirt. And the worktrucks and machinery here and there looking anything but done for the season.

Because they couldn't possibly have been there. You were finished for the year, you see. We all knew that.

But it was very life-like.

When you originally decided to work on almost every major road in the city at the same time this spring, I can't say I was happy about it, but I understood.

Yes, the work would close us off weekend after weekend, evening after evening, from our popular shopping destinations, and the biggest route across our state. But I knew it had to be done. I had empathy in my heart for you. I held the image of a beautiful, smooth-riding future.

I am stupid that way.

And so I heeded your warnings and made workaround plans. Which isn't exactly easy when you decide to rip up the Parkway East, West, North, Saw Mill Run Boulevard, Route 28, Fifth Avenue, Forbes Avenue, and partially close the Birmingham Bridge, all at the same time.

My empathy waned a little once or twice there, I admit. I might have even said a few not-so-ladylike words.

But I kept out of your way, weekend after weekend, night after night. The way you seem to like it. The way your PR reps on the news tell us, "Avoid this area. And if you have to be somewhere, leave extra time."

Only it's hard to estimate an extra two hours for what's normally a ten minute drive. I had that happen once.

Never again.

So, you can imagine my horror over what had to be just a very vivid figment of my imagination. As I dared peek my head out from my home on Saturday and journey East, thinking my path was free--only to see my return trip might very well hold hours of gridlock and gritted teeth.

Fortunately, it was only a hallucination.

So I am now looking for a good psychiatrist. I will tell this doc about the vivid images that have been appearing before my eyes. Perhaps it was caused by stress. Perhaps brought on from spending too many weekends shut in. But whatever the reason, I am hopeful that with patience and analysis, I will have a cure.

I am stupid that way, too.

The tricky part, of course, will be to ensure I get a shrink on the proper side of the Parkway. Because if the doc's in Monroeville or off the Turnpike, well... I might just not be able to make my appointment.

Due to the hallucination delays, dontchaknow.

Sincerely,

Jenn Thorson

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Ideas to Labor Over

Ah, Labor Day-- a time for workforce appreciation, blowout this-weekend-only furniture sales (until next weekend, when we have another one), and me, off stuffing myself with hotdogs, pasta salad and roasted marshmallows at a friend's annual picnic. Woo and hoo!

And, see, I like you SO much-- you excellent Friends of Cabbages-- I didn't want to leave you without any Cabbagey-goodness today, should you happen to pop by between the potato salad and watermelon. So this holiday Monday I offer you some "Ideas To Labor Over"-- a small photo collection of things that maybe could have been thought through just a bit better...

Like these detour signs I spotted on my way to work Friday morning. See the orange signs on each side of this street?


I wanted to give you a big picture view first, so you'll see I'm not jiving you...

How about now?... No?


Closer?-- Okay, how about now? Here is the left hand sign...


"Trail Detour" and an arrow pointing left. Now, on the opposite side of the very same street....

That's right. "Trail Detour" and an arrow pointing...right. The exact opposite direction of the other sign, yet 50 feet away.

Yep, welcome to Wonderland. This is my city. And I am so, so proud.

In addition to my chat with the Tweedles -Dee and -Dum in Public Works, I would also like to have a little word with the very non-local Garnier Fructis People. It's a nice shampoo, I really can't complain about the product. It's their packaging...

See, I'm a marketer myself, I know how these things go. Someone probably said a goal for this product was to look environmentally sound-- "green"-- but "hot" and "today" and "high-tech." So someone did some mock-ups of what the bottle would look like... if it mated with a rollerball mouse...


Oh, it's cute and all. Rollerball mice always are. But the thing is-- and say I lack vision if you must-- this is still a shampoo bottle. And one of the main things people do with shampoo bottles, is turn them upside down so the shampoo is easy to get out.

Rollerball mice do not function well in a face-down prone position.

Neither does this bottle. Nevermind the fact that the first time I got one of these bottles, I spent ten minutes thinking the ball was actually integral in some way to getting the bottle open.

It's not. It doesn't roll, it does nothing but flip like any other shampoo lid. The thing is, round, ridgeless flip tops are also extremely hard to grip and lift with wet hands. Wet hands which you probably have in, say, the shower.

Flat tops, Garnier People.... tops as flat as Jim McMahon's hair. That is what I want.

Now this-- these may look like simple plastic shower loofahs to you. But what you see here are actually "Loofites," an alien species which has subtley infiltrated Earth as harmless skin exfoliants, in its unending quest for World Domination.


I mean look at how they start out. The Loofite on the left is small, cute, compact, and available at the grocery store for the affordable price of $1.

But within weeks, due to the wet environment in which they thrive, the Loofite has grown to two, nay, almost three times its original size! If I did not send the larger of the two Loofites away from the moist atmosphere it needs to grow, it would now be evicting me from the shower in a deep baritone voice, and calling in its mother ship, which some say looks like a giant backscrubber but is actually just very advanced alien technology.

Well, that's it for today. To folks here in the U.S., I wish you a happy day of non-laboring. And to my friends in the UK, Canada, and elsewhere around the world, well, you probably just had a bank holiday or something, didn't you? I will have a lips-and-beaks-filled processed meat casing in your honor!

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Vote for Of Cabbages and Kings at Humor-blogs. Because it would be nifty-cool to actually get into the Top 30 before I have a coronary from too many processed meats.

Now Taking Auditions for Pittsburgh's Mothman

So a few weeks ago, one of the piers on the Birmingham Bridge dropped a few inches-- the pier over which I commute these days.

Interestingly, the side of the bridge that IS currently closed to traffic is the one that… HASN’T SHIFTED.

Now I understand that SOMETHING has to be closed. Because, of course, this is Pittsburgh; unhindered movement through the city is simply not allowed.

It’s for our own good, of course. We might all get swimmy in the head from going a heart-pounding 25 miles per hour… Or for more than two consecutive blocks without stopping. You know: experience some automotive version of “The Bends.”

That’s just the city looking out for our best interests.

So, yes, something has to be closed. I accept that. But it seems to me-- and I’m not a construction worker, or a structural engineer, or a mathematician, or even very good with a slide-rule or anything-- but it seems to me, the side of the bridge that SHOULD be closed should be…

Oh, I don’t know…

THE SIDE OF THE BRIDGE THAT DROPPED SEVERAL INCHES.

But no.

Now, the bridge has been propped up with hydraulic jacks, and supports, and steel, and thirty energetic superheroes, and duct tape. So it’s perfectly safe for tons and tons of giant shiny bits of metal and people to press down on it each day. That allows them to close the bridge pier which HASN’T DROPPED, in order to “design and manufacture a new bearing system for it.”

Then they’ll attend to the dropsy side.

It makes no sense to ME. But again, I don’t construct, engineer, math-up or have slide-rule savvy.

What I DO know is that driving on Mr. Dropsy each day tends to give a person a slightly different perspective on things like, oh, traffic back-ups. I see that light up ahead on Fifth Avenue turn red, notice myself 50 cars back and idling in the center of the bridge, and I find myself thinking:

In the 60s, the Silver Bridge in West Virginia fell into the river and hundreds of people died, almost including Laura Linney, except that was in that Richard Gere movie and they’d had the Mothman to warn them. Pittsburgh has no Mothman....

Pittsburgh NEEDS a Mothman.

So I think I'd feel more confident in my commute if we could take a serious look at some Mothman-style talent for Pittsburgh.

When I say "Mothman-style" talent, I want to give the applicants a little leeway. I mean, yes, Mothman himself had merits. The legend of the creepy apparition with red eyes at the window, making prophetic telephone calls, all culminating in the Silver Bridge disaster, well, it has showmanship.

But, really, is Pittsburgh prepared for anything so convoluted, so overdone? Plus, there's that whole rotten phone reception when he calls. Pittsburghers are practical people. Instead of listening to these crackly warnings, half the city would be calling Verizon and Vonage about issues with their cellular service.

So I'm thinking if there's any local, say, Troll-lady (trolls notoriously have good bridge skills), that would be an excellent place to start. Or maybe a Gargoyle-man (also appropriate for our historical architecture). Or even, say, a turn-of-the-century Steelworker type, that's something I think the city could get behind.

The job of fortelling potential collapse, now THAT is going to have to be a little more straight-forward than Mothman's approach. Sure, the right candidate should try to make a grand entrance. The burning-eyes-in-the-dark schtick is an attention-getter, certainly, but not a deal-breaker. The applicant will want to use their own discretion about that-- and be creative!

Now the warnings, they're going to have to be easy to hear. We have a lot of older people in this city, and they have a right to hear the proclamations of potential doom as well as anybody else. So any candidates for the position-- you're going to have to remember to project. Speak up. No mumbling. You're prophecizing disaster, not asking little Suzie for a date.

With Pittsburgh's own Mothman-style entity, I think the City of Bridges can keep going safe and strong for another century. And I'll feel just a bit better on my drive home.

Applicants for the position can submit their resume, headshot and previous hauntings to the Pittsburgh Casting Office for Paranormal Phenomena and Mascots, or leave a comment with this post. We'll get back to you with an audition time.

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Recruiting for our mascot from Humor-blogs only netted us some dead roosters, pointless banter and a bunch of clowns.

The Pittsburgh Pothole Admiration Society

Spring in Pittsburgh. When trees bud, robins appear, and the roads are filled with potholes so deep, they make the Mines of Moria look like Kansas prairie.

On the news, commuters rage daily about the city’s pothole situation. Tires are blown, rims bent, small children rattled out of the car and lost, and denture wearers turning to heavier fixatives. Like tar.

But I think all these folks who are complaining just aren’t looking at it from the right angle. They’re not seeing the potential found in this season’s potholes. So I thought I would help, by offering my beloved city some top tips for "Pothole Appreciation." I believe, with a simple change in perspective, the pothole plenitude can be turned into a real asset for our region. Here are some preliminary suggestions:


Instead of continual patching—which we know never stays put anyway—why don’t we just scrape off the bit of road surface that’s left? Looking at it in pure square footage, there’s currently less of it than there are holes, anyway.

Now, this will cause Pittsburgh's overall elevation to be somewhat reduced. So it means that places like "The Bathtub"-- that part of the Parkway which inevitably gets covered by the Mon River-- to be permanently under water.

But all that requires is marketing spin. Think of Atlantis, and how that’s still a curiosity and a household name thousands of years later. If “Pittsburgh: The City of Bridges” could be spun into “Pittsburgh: Like Atlantis But Still Kicking,” this could be really good for the tourism market. This would also help out the local ferry lines, which could offer more points of interest on their tours.


Consider how potholes stimulate the economy. Wonky wheels, blow outs, tow services, people in vehicles trapped in six foot pits. All these things mean money is going to the autobody shops, tire companies, insurance companies, car dealers and hospitals. This means more people in theses industries are keeping their jobs. More jobs mean happier Pittsburghers. Also since many autobody shops are small businesses, this helps support local entrepreneurs. So, when you see a pothole, don't curse, swerve into oncoming traffic, or weep over the damage to your vehicle. Smile! Cheer! Say, "Hi, Mr. Pothole, I'm happy to meet ya! Thanks for helping keep our local mom-and-pop shop automotive repairmen as an integral part of our city's great neighborhoods!"


The Grand Canyon gets millions of visitors a year, and that’s just one big hole. We have thousands of holes across the city and suburbs, so why not take advantage of it? Organize a “Potholes of Interest” tour, choosing the most deep, dangerous and dynamic of the bunch to feature. We could name them, give them a little prestige. Plaques bought in bulk only cost a few dollars each, so offer sponsorships to companies and local celebrities for each plaque and naming rights. For instance, the “Pitt Football Pit.” Or the “Ben Rothlisberger Pass.” It could be sort of like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There could be maps. The city needs this sort of new energy brought to it, and this “Potholes of Interest” plan might really get things rolling.


Look at it as an opportunity to test personal jetpacks as a city-wide transit option. With the fine technological minds available at our local universities, we have the astounding opportuntiyy to create Pittsburgh into the first jet-pack commuter city. Surely major research institutions would be happy to invest in this as a critical social experiment. How viable is it for our future? How cool would thousands of Steelers Fans look on television jettisoning from the stadium after a game? We'd be the envy of viewers all across the country.

Okay, sure, jetpacks don't currently allow movement over significant distances. But that's where the R&D comes in. Pittsburgh has transitioned so elegantly from a steel town to a technology hotbed. It's up to us to take advantage of it.

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Now mind you, these are just the first round of ideas, designed to really get our families, our neighbors, and our city administrators thinking in new directions. But I firmly believe we can accomplish much if we all start to look at the as pothole half-full, instead of half-empty.

Thank you.

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What do potholes and Humor-blogs have in common? A lot of dips-- myself included!