#129 Flinger

I happened to spy an interesting tableau when I got stopped by a traffic light. Four people who obviously worked for the city were doing some landscaping. Or perhaps the term landscaping maintenance is more accurate One fellow was engaged in the heavy duty lawn mowing. He probably had seniority, which meant that it was his responsible position to ride on the riding lawn mower. The next guy on the civil service totem pole was decked out in a giant backpack thingy, from which extended a big hose with a nozzle on it. His job appeared to be to sweep off both the sidewalk and the grass with his air nozzle. I felt a little sorry for the guy. First off, the pack he was shouldering looked like with only a little tinkering it could have lifted him in the air like jetpack robocops from the future. This sucker was big. And noisy. Even over the sound of my car stereo blasting, the thumping of the hip-hop guy’s chopped Civic to my left and the real estate guy yelling on his cellphone right in front of me, I could hear the leaf blower. The jetpack guy had on those bright orange earplugs. I hate those things. Specifically I hate running into used ones under the pillow when I first go to bed in a motel room.
So there was the lead-scaper riding the mower and number two was lugging the blower chasing down his cut grass and every time lead-scaper would come back for another pass, number two’s grass would blow back at him cause of the lawnmower’s propwash. Blower boy was making some progress though, because he had managed to blow up a pile of clippings to landscaper number three. She was the shoveler-slash-flinger. She had a big shovel with which she was picking up the cut grass and a big trashcan in front of her wherein she was flinging said shovelsful. Sort of. The trashcan was about a foot too far from the terminal range of her fling. The whole time I sat at the light she didn’t manage to get one complete shovelful into the trashcan. If she had only stopped shoveling for a second, walked over three feet, and dragged the can back in her direction, she would have had a shot at it. As it was, blower boy would return every minute or so and air-herd the clippings back in the direction of her pile, which would grow again, and then she would spread it to the wind again, and etc. I felt like I was at a mental hospital watching a patient endlessly pick the same imaginary crumb from the front of her shirt. The last figure in this tableau was actually standing by the trashcan in question. He gazed off into the distance, quietly contemplating the cigarette he was drawing on, the magnificence of nature, and the minutes to his next legally-mandated break period. He could have moved the trashcan back towards flinger lady, but no. He was the supervisor. Don’t let that orange vest fool you, this guy had spent considerable energy floating to the top of the bureaucratic cesspool. Still, I guess we’re making progress. With all the recent budget cuts, at least there’s only one guy standing around doing nothing. But I’m thinking we haven’t gone far enough. One push mower with a grass catcher could wipe out two positions and save a ton of money on gas.
America, ya gotta love it.