Welcome to the Squall Line!

I wish that question was a joke. I believe the correct answer SHOULD be 6 months (max). However, my county road department is now at 20 months and counting on this yet-to-be completed project. (I live at the END of this road and believe me, I'm counting.) We’re talking about a crew that works is on site forty hours every week. I have seen these guys sleeping on the job… alot. Or reading the paper as they lounge in their trucks. The only people I saw break a sweat this summer were the prisoners the county brought out in crews.

Is there an Incompetency Award I can nominate this Road Crew for? How about the Squall Line’s Slug of the Year award - to recognize the spectacular efforts of individuals and organizations promoting the regression of human achievement? Of course this year, there is stiff competition among government agencies as well as corporations that have been inefficient to the point of bankruptcy, causing the government (with all of the extra money we borrowed from the Chinese) to come to the rescue. I digress.

The long and winding road. The one that has made my car an old woman before her time. My once beautiful and efficient vehicle that now squeaks and rattles because it has dirt in every crack and crevice. I’m not just talking about the brakes - my poor car squeals like a wounded animal just rolling down the road. People regularly lose car parts driving on this road riverbed or washboard (conditions determined by variable local rainfall). Granted, we knew the condition of the road when we built a home out here in the boondocks. However, to be offered hope and deliverance where there is none is cruel punishment. To watch this crew has been real torture.

I must say that one of the men on this project who happens to love our dogs asked me to squall about this to the county officials. He commented he is embarrassed and ashamed of this folly. I haven’t squalled that loudly – yet. Of course when I think of who’s paying the bill, I feel motivated to beller. (That’s what my neighbor calls the noise her cows make. Does she mean bellow?)

When the alleged paving project began 14 months before Cupcake graduated from high school, we joked that the project would be complete just in time for her to move off of our lovely road. Oh no, not to be. She’ll be coming home for the holidays to her dear old dirt road.

If you have a nominee for the SLUG award, or a rant of any flavor, here’s your chance. The Squall Line will be posted on the 1st and third Tuesday. Link up to the exact post on your blog and go ahead - have a good squall.