Life Just Is... 20
There's a sidewalk running down our street.
I like sidewalks most of the time. They are usually quite friendly and make good neighbors. One time I was out of sugar and borrowed a cup of it from the sidewalk. It tasted kind of chalky, but the cookies came out ok, and the snake-like things didn't seem to mind, so it all worked out well.
But the sidewalk running down our street didn't seem to be the friendly-neighbor type. It had a few big potholes that it probably got from fighting. It had on a muscle shirt and looked all buff and worked out, but in a bad way. All the chalk marks were graffiti and some used very unsavory words. Words like pungency and distasteful. It was clearly a sidewalk from the wrong side of town.
When it came to the road crossing, it just kept going. It almost ran into a bus, but luckily the driver was able to stop in time. I couldn't tell if the sidewalk just didn't care or perhaps it was wearing one of those jogger's headphones and just never noticed the honking.
The worst thing was when it got to Ms. Johnson's tulips. You know the little tulip patch that she planted in her front yard? All red and yellow and her own hybrid plaid breed? Well, the sidewalk just ran right over them without even stopping, and they didn't have time to get out of the way. Didn't even pause to apologize or call a plant-doctor.
I was out front watering my front yard. I don't know why I bother watering the yard since I replaced the grass with green concrete, but old habits are hard to break I guess, and at least pouring water on it helps keep the yard clean and discourages kids from coming over and playing basketball.
The sidewalk ran right up into my yard.
How do you greet a sidewalk? I'm a polite kind of guy, but this sidewalk didn't really seem the polite type, so I wasn't sure what to do.
The sidewalk stopped in my yard and sure enough, it was wearing headphones. It took the headphones off and asked me if I could hose it down. Not exactly sure what to do, I turned the hose on the new sidewalk. I guess it was hot from running down the street.
At least the hose helped clear off the chalk graffiti
After the hosing, we shared some idle small talk. Turns out the sidewalk ran all the way from upper East 2nd street (the one near Jonny's House-of-Pork-Loins). It wanted to be part of next month's Jog-for-Ulcers, so was getting ready. Turns out the sidewalk is quite into civic renewal and tries to help other sidewalks get involved in the community.
Guess you can't judge a sidewalk by the graffiti
The sidewalk was really sorry for running all over Ms. Johnson's tulips. I called the plant-doctor after it went running on down the street.