Pot

Bet you thought this post was going to be about this:



Or perhaps, this:





Maybe even this:



And for those of you who think I only post crass, sexually suggestive photos here...possibly this, the duct tape boys:



But, you would all be wrong...this post is not about the evil weed...cooking pots...pot pies...or the height of sophistication, every girl's dream and the epitome of raw, male sexuality. Nope, it's about this:



That's correct...it's about pot all right...potholes. Not just any potholes, but the mother of all potholes! In the place of the mothers of all pot holes...Lincoln, Nebraska.

California has fire season, mudslide season, earthquake season and Santa Ana Winds season. Here on the great American Plains, where the buffalo roam, where the prairie dogs foam, and football reigns...we...have tornadoes and...pothole season. And because we are a poor state...and because potholes abound with the freeze, thaw, feeze, thaw, fickleness of Nebraska weather...and because the local pothole team consists of one old guy with a rusty shovel, who can only advance laterally to John Deere Mower Operator, come June...which affects his potholeness repair attitude and rapid response to the same...and because potholes are like rabbits...and coat hangers...they multiply quickly when you turn out the lights, or look away. And simply because yesterday you went down a certain street and there were only three potholes...and you, YOU, know EXACTLY where they are located...well, a fool and his front alignment are soon parted.

I am that fool.

The photo above is a photo of the results of supreme arrogance. My arrogance. My stupidity. My trust that the street upon which I traverse, every day. A street that I have come to love...is still an old friend and safe. But I have been betrayed. The smooth ride is over and I will never view this street in the same way again. You see, when my cell phone rang I was temporarily distracted, but without fear, because I was at the only block on this street that was...WAS...pothole free. I looked at my phone. I answered my phone. My mind became one with the phone and the person on the other end...and...it...gobbled...my...bumper...and tire (the hole fools, not the phone.) "The" hole was at least 34 feet deep. Just short of the depth of the Mariana Trench, which is just east and south of the Mariana Islands, near Guam, and happens to be the deepest hole on the planet. I am lucky to still be in the same hemisphere where I live, much less still alive.

I can only equate this hole with the treacherous, evil, sinkholes of Central Florida. I recall one such sinkhole gobbling up an entire BMW Dealership in Winter Park, overnight, sometime in the mid-1980s. It would have been far better, it seems to me, had it been a Ford Dealership, but hey, God works in mysterious "holy" ways, I always say.

This is not the whole hole story, there's more, but I have other things to do...such as surfing the net for cheap bumper skins...and shovels.

Oh, and for those of you who noticed...yes indeed, that is transparent duct tape, which is keeping the part that houses the fog lights from flapping in the breeze...not to mention the fog. A temporary bit of circumstance, but a testament to the adage that much of the world is held together by duct tape...excepting potholes.