The Dirt Gnomes bring road gravel to all the children who've been good.
Curmudgeon Compound is on a dirt road. This is not by accident. The dirt road dissuades yuppies, congressmen, evangelists, lawyers, bankers, and other assorted hoodlums from settling here. I remember carefully explaining to our real estate agent that I wanted a place on a dirt road lest “some dickhead builds a WalMart across the street which will force me get all bullety and indignant”. My agent was a patient woman who nodded politely and asked if she could talk to my wife. (Real estate agents know full well that men left to their own devices would happily live in a two stall garage with a chain link perimeter for landscaping. They consult wives for everything. My wife backed me up. Yours didn’t and that’s why you live on a cul-de-sac with homeowner’s association fees and the crazy spinster cat lady across the street who measures your lawn with a ruler and calls the cops if it’s 1/8th inch too tall.)
Alas all good comes with bad. Dirt roads erode like a politician’s morals. Every few months washboards develop. Periodic maintenance fixes it. In my case a 90 year old man driving a 60 year old road grader arrives according a schedule unknown to logic. This makes everything perfect. Sometimes they’ll dump a load or two of gravel. No matter how bad the ruts get (even if I need a Lewis and Clark style expedition to get to the store) I never complain for fear that the county will put in a six lane superhighway with Obamabucks, quadruple my taxes, and I’ll wind up good and truly Californicated.
Yesterday, because pixie dust was in the air and the moon was in the seventh house, trucks bearing blessed dirt arrived and started dumping it on the road. Cool. This morning a grader was smoothing it.
For a moment I was panicked. Could it be the beginning of a Pavement Demon onslaught? No sign of the dreaded pavement equipment. I think all is well. Looks like a simple visit from the Dirt Gnomes. Oh Happy Day!
