A Necessary Evil?

There are some things that just don't make sense to me - maybe someone can shed some light on them. This morning I read that, "NASA will not launch the next shuttle mission until March 4, at the earliest, because the agency is still working to figure out how to prevent hazardous debris from falling off the external fuel tank during ascent, officials said Thursday."

Well before we do that, let's figure out to properly pave the streets of Boston that we drive on everyday. It seems like between NSTAR, Keyspan, and the Boston Water and Sewer, not to mention the BIG DIG project that's been around forever, there's a neverending patchwork of holes on our city streets. My 5 year old Passat which I intended to keep for 10 years is quickly being jarred into an early grave.

There's a project currently underway on a major street that runs from Roslindale to West Roxbury that has created one of the largest pieces of Swiss cheese this side of Geneva. I'm sure this problem is not relegated strictly to this area. The problem isn't so much the digging, but the filling of the hole. Why is it that they can never figure out the proper amount of patch to use to fill the hole. And when they don't, why don't they come back to fix it? It never fails, but the day after, the patch in the hole always settles between one to three inches. Don't these people ride on the same streets and see the problems they are creating. I swear that these companies are getting some invisible kickback(s) from the gas stations and auto body shops in the area. I might be wrong, but if I hired someone to wiretap the phones of these locales, I would probably hear a conversation that goes something like this; "Hey Sal, business is a little slow in our area, do me a favor and talk to Joe to see if he can divert some of the digging activities to this area. Don't worry tell them we'll take care of them."

It's hard to remember who's done what job. These companies have more aliases than Billy Bulger. I had a hard time remembering that NSTAR was Boston Edison and Keyspan used to be Boston Gas. I think they do this to confuse people. Doesn't it cost money to change names? What's the benefit to me? Higher rates.

I saw a guy the other day that had just come out of his car after riding over one of those patch jobs that had been completed the day before. As I approached him, he looked dazed. I thought he had been involved in an accident, but I didn't see anyone else around. He had a scratch on the left side of his face just below his ear and had a fairly large size stain on his pant leg that I first thought might have been blood. What I soon found out was that while he was driving, talking on his cell phone which he had in his left hand, he hit that hole, jarring the hand that the phone was in into his face, causing the scratch. Since he had the window open his cell phone fell out. The stain on his pant leg was caused by the Iced Coffee that was jarred out of the cup holder on the dash. Even the God Bless America magnet was jolted off the back of the car.

We found the phone about 40 feet away. Even though the case was damaged it was still operable (a true testament to the 'Can You Hear Me Now Company'). As he was going back to his car, he realized that he lost one of his hubcaps. From across the street we heard a voice saying, 'Are you looking for this?' My mouth dropped when I saw a mechanic from the gas station standing there holding the hub cap with the cat that ate the mouse look in his eyes. A script to this scenario couldn't have been written any better by the most gifted playright. The hub cap rolled right into the service station's driveway as if it knew that that's where it eventually would have to go.

Just as I left the man who had now brought his vehicle into the gas station, I heard a few more cars pass by over this indentation. They were lucky, that nothing happened. When I arrived home, I made numerous calls to City Hall and finally got someone who said that they would go and check it out. I just hope she wasn't related to the man in the gas station (sorry for being cynical).

I often heard say that, "A car in a necessary evil." Is it necessary to spend $2000 on insurance, $1400 in gas and rising by the week, and God knows what on maintenance each year? I figure that it costs me between $5,000 - $6,000 per yr. assuming that the car is paid for. At this sum, it's not necessary, it's evil to maintain a car. There are other alternatives.