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Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details. TheMother of all potholes marks advent of spring by J. G. Fabiano
All change comes with certain unmistakable signs, if only you know how to read them. Even something as profound as a change of season presents itself first as a series of subtle signs that the transition process has finally begun. Unfortunately, this particular transition between winter and spring is having a bit of a tough time transitioning. Possible because it is mid-March and the snow packed around my house is still three feet deep. Possibly because the air temperatures are staying at record lows and the winds of winter have continued their attack on what is left of the shingles on my roof. However, if you observe everything around you carefully, signs of our changing season are there. The other day I saw my first robin. Of course it was frozen to the driveway and stone-dead but it still was there. Later that same day I discovered a bunch of the red-breasted harbingers of spring gathered together in a huddle, shivering as they tried to keep alive. I think one of them gave me a questioning look, as if asking if I knew what was wrong with the climate, but I just shrugged. I was kind of wondering the same thing myself. By far the most important sign of the time when winter starts to give way to spring is the discovery of the first major pothole as you unsuspectingly drive down a back road in order to get to your home. I hit one the other day and it hurt - not just the car but me. It had to be at least a foot I depth and it made a trench across the entire width of the road. If I had a choice I would rather have hit a tree trying to get around it and probably would have done less damage to the car. At first I thought my engine had exploded. The front end of the car actually dipped, like I was going over a cliff, while I assumed a sudden weightlessness, which resulted in my head crashing into the roof of my car, thereby proving Newton's third law of motion. I also learned that seatbelts might stop your head from going through the windshield of your car, but do little to keep your head from going through the roof. What made it worse was that I was wearing a hat with one of those little metal buttons on the top. I now have the word 'Levi' stamped permanently into the top of my skull. Still, the launch was only half of it; there was still the landing. The impact of my head hitting the roof instantly propelled me down again with my teeth rattling, my tongue protruding and a strange gargling scream swelling up out of my throat. As I came down my face met a stack of CD cases still on their way up to the roof and the effect, I guess, was the same as a punching bag feels after a session with Lennox Lewis. What I couldn't understand was how every case managed to hit me corner first, leaving me with a rash of little red welts and nicks all over my face. Another injury that I have to explain to my doctor, who has long since given up asking me how I managed to do this or that to myself, which is the primary reason I like going to him. At that point the flying flock of CD cases collided with the roof and came cascading down around me so that I had to swat them away from my head, like giant carnivorous butterflies, before they did me any further damage. At which point I realized that I was now steering the car with my knees---and then the back wheels of the car hit the pothole. With a mighty wallop the rear of my car fell into what had to be a major crack in the earth. At this point the hood of the car reared skyward like it was about to take off into space and I actually felt the G-force of a blast-off flatten my cheeks against my face. I even heard the rumble of rocket engines that later turned out to be the sound of my rear axle being torn loose. Of course, what goes up has to come down. Before my car actually succeeded in breaking free of the gravitational pull of the earth, the front end slammed down again and bounced like a basketball dropped from a 10-story building. I felt like a guy in a barrel going over Niagara Falls as my entire body was thrown around the inside of my car like the seat belts were bungee cords. I heard a terrible rattling cry of fear and pain and realized it had to be coming from me. Then I stopped in complete amazement as I saw my car keys and motor vehicle registration float past my eyes. Little balls of Kleenex I had stuffed in my glove box that had burst open during my descent into the mother of all potholes looked like pretty little white doves flying around inside the cab of my car. This was followed by a miniature sandstorm as all the sand and grit of the last five winters that had accumulated on the floor of my car became airborne. For a minute I actually lost track of where I was. My knees were no longer steering the car but were somewhere up around my ears. Instinctively I raised my hands to protect myself against a second metal stamp in the top of my head, but instead of finding the roof I felt the car seat where my butt was supposed to be, and realized that either I, or the car was now upside down. At this point time seemed to slow down as my mind refused to accept what was happening to me. With nobody steering it anymore and the engine dead, the car rolled to a stop against somebody's mailbox half buried in a snow bank. When I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was an old watch that I hadn't seen in years and which had become wedged between a seat spring and the seat cushion. Which should give you some idea of the position I was in. Not wanting to move too quickly in case I inflicted more injury upon myself, I paused to take inventory. The first thing I noticed was a powerful and cold weight against the back of my neck and the clammy feel of wet rubber which I realized was the weight of my body pressing me into the floor mat. Looking up past my legs waving feebly in the air, I parted my feet and noticed that the little dent my hat stud had made in the roof of the car was in exact proportion to the little dent I now had permanently in the top of my head. Slowly, and not without some difficulty I might tell you, I righted myself and looked around at the disaster of my car that now looked like it had been hit by a tornado. Shakily I put the keys back in the ignition, turned the engine and heard the kind of expensive grinding noises you hear when somebody is using a lathe to cut metal. Carefully I made the turn toward my house and tried to limp into the garage, ignoring the shrieking sounds from my engine and wondering if my wife would actually believe that a single pothole had done all this damage. Glancing behind me in disbelief, I saw a warning sign before the crack in the earth that said simply: 'Bump.' I would say I just bumped into spring! The End
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