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Saturday, June 11, 2011

Idiot plus alcohol plus velocity...

When the near record temperatures arrived on Wednesday, so did one nasty chest cold. So, I dealt with it.

While it's been hot, it's been humid and it's been necessary to avoid direct sunlight for long, I've been feeling far less than optimal. So last night, even though I had to work early this morning, I decided to make like most Americans do and I followed the path to the sudsy yellow nozzle, while I was loading up on Nyquil.

And at about a half hour to midnight, feeling nice and fuzzy and all, I wandered off to bed. And I actually slept quite peacefully for the first time in three days.

And then the big BANG! arrived at exactly 1 a.m...BANG!!!

And almost immediately, the fog horn noise from the remade War of The Worlds started sounding, linked perfectly to blinding, piercing pulses of light. I do not remember ever springing out of my bed faster than that. The Tripods were on the march! And so was Markie.

And as I headed out the door with a Streamlight,a stiletto and the portable police scanner in hand, the eery similarity to War of The Worlds movie was not lost on my neighbor Wes as he made an almost instant reference to the Tom Cruise flick.

Turns out, all that was afoot was some simple algebra. Or, was it trigonometry. Like calculating the square footage of a triangular-shaped structure, or something. Uh, I dunno. But I remember the oft-repeated telephone pole equation well enough: Idiot plus alcohol plus velocity equals the removal of immovable objects.

Care to grade that one?

Yeah, some ass munch took down two telephone poles, an unusually large transformer was exploding and arcing after it had crashed to the pavement and broke into pieces. Oh, and it's liquid contents (no more PCBs I'm told) were pouring into the storm sewer necessitating that both the Department of Environmental Protection and the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority be notified. And judging by their disinterested responses, I'm left to assume that the precious environment only needs protecting during normal business hours. Typical government employees.


So, the driver was placed in handcuffs as a police officer removed empty beer bottles from what remained of the crumpled truck and lined them up on the roof. A large and seemingly joyous Friday night crowd gathered and very quickly had to be shooed away by the throng of first responders armed with flashlights.

It seemed those folks with the Milwaukee's Bests in hand weren't all that fearful of the criss-crossing downed wires. And since they were feeling no pain, perhaps they should have been allowed to frolic all about without direction from the authorities.

If it were my call to make, we'd have to call it a non-call.

Anyway, at 1 a.m., it was the War of The Worlds reenactment just outside. By 2:20 a.m., the first of the PP&L emergency crews arrived on scene. And I can only imagine what they radioed back to their base. Something along the lines of holy f__k!?!

At 3:30, it occurred to me that 5:00 comes fast, with or without an electrically-powered alarm clock. So I hit the couch with nary a fan or an air conditioner. And I relived that couple of seconds contained within were the best special effects I had ever been privy to. And by 7, I was in route to and but mere minutes away from a job site.

So I'm sick and tired. No, not sick and tired, as in, sick and tired with the intellectual dishonesty of the left-leaning. What I mean is, I'm sick. And I'm tired, too.

But I ain't been plucked by any aliens.

Later

*The last of the PP&L crews left near 4 p.m. Perhaps when the idiot sobers up, they should hand him the bill.

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