Occupation Force

Sometime earlier this summer, the Water Department invaded my neighborhood. They never gave us warning, as far as I recall. They just roared in on their heavy machinery early one morning and set up camp.

To work on this team there seem to be several requirements. You have to be very big and have a very loud voice that you use frequently to shout above the roar of the street-destroying equipment.

You also have to be able to convey your utter disdain for those of us whose lives you are disrupting day after day.

You also have to be able to appear to not really be trying very hard to get this project completed.

"What do you expect?" my friend, the UPS driver says, his hand over his mouth the way a baseball player exchanges confidences with his teammate with his glove held in front of his face. "They're from The City."

Maybe he's afraid those Water Department guys can read lips, too.



Since the invasion, they've turned into a true occupation force, expanding their reach day after day. Their "Do Not Park" signs creep up and down both sides of our streets in an imperialistic manner than forces those of us who own cars here to compete like rats for an ever-smaller piece of the curb each night.

They have created huge piles of trash, including toxic materials and their leftover lunches, that lie festering on our corners. (Okay, maybe not their lunches exactly, but the crap our local denizens add to the pile as they shuffle past.)

Why not? It's already so junkie.



So what are these occupiers up to? As near as I can tell, they time their arrival each morning to coincide with the moment when those of us light sleepers are desperately trying to grab that last little slice of repose that just might help us get through the day ahead without falling asleep at our keyboards.

Then they turn on their earth-shattering equipment and proceed to tear up one side of the street. Over the hours, the sound they emit is so horrifying that you begin to feel like you live in a war zone.

They are sound-bombing us to death!

I suppose they are replacing the water pipes, eh? But as soon as they've finished one side of the street, they noisily and messily patch it up, only to move across the street the next day, and do much the same thing over there.

Now, since I've begun observing these workers, it has become clear to me that they are proceeding with their project one small pipe sequence at a time. They hopscotch back and forth every day, once again cracking up concrete in six or eight feet chunks, only to patch it up again in the afternoon.

Wouldn't it has been more efficient to at least do the entire block at one time?

They've been at this at least a month now, I swear, and they appear to be nowhere near completion. The last time their ilk visited our block, my housemate and I ended up with an astronomical water bill after they ruptured a pipe in front of our place but didn't fix it for days.

We shouldn't complain, I suppose. We are a colony here, after all, in the inner city, a collection of poorer folks with little recourse other than to complain to one another.

Except for me. I'm taking this one to the whole world tonight! The world wide web, right?

Come to think of it, I probably would accomplish more by shouting about this into the wind. At least then the cops would be called to haul me off to the loony bin. There, I wouldn't have to endure the sound of jackhammer (削岩機 in Japanese).

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