Thursday, August 1, 2024

Thursday, 8/1

I got mugged on my way to work yesterday.

Don’t worry; I wasn’t physically assaulted by another human being. I’m not bruised or battered. I still have all my money and large chunk of my pride. It’s just that I was...attacked out of the blue while walking down Front Street yesterday morning around 9.

I was mugged by the Peter White Public Library lawn sprinkler system.

As I was walking past the library I heard a strange sound and stopped for a quick second to try and figure out what it was. That was my mistake, because as soon as I stopped the underground sprinklers used by the library all shot to life and started squirting water everywhere. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. However, several of the library’s sprinkler heads aren’t aligned the way they’re supposed to be, and therefore water more of the sidewalk than they do the library’s lawn. Unfortunately, the part of the sidewalk they water was the exact part of the sidewalk on which I was standing.

Fortunately, even though it was just after 9 am, the temperature was in the upper 70s. I can just imagine what my reaction would have been had I been doused with water when it was, like, 50 or something. It wouldn’t have been pretty.

I’m also fortunate that I wasn’t standing 20 or so feet south of where I was. Where I was standing I was hit with a spray of water that was shooting in a circle. Had I been standing 20 feet down the hill, I would’ve been hit by a fountain of water shooting straight up in the air through what’s obviously a bad sprinkler head. Instead of spreading water in an even circle, like a normal sprinkler does, this “fountain” resembles what happens when you stick a hose straight up and shoot water through it as hard as possible. The fountain of water shooting out of the bad sprinkler was taller than I, and I’m 5-10 and a half. If I had been standing right near that fountain. . .

Well, I would’ve had my second shower for the day.

So like I said, I made it through my mugging without too much damage. But let this serve as a warning--if you’re on Front Street by the Peter White Public Library at 9 am and you hear a strange sound, run. You’ll have about five seconds before you get really, really wet.

Trust me on this!

(jim@wmqt.com)

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