Monday, September 16, 2013

Packing peanuts from heaven?

Yesterday's bridge commute was irritating and entertaining at the same time.

Traffic was backed up going West, with one lane closed due to SDT truck trying to corral millions of green packing peanuts that had escaped from ???????   The peanuts were floating, falling, blowing around the traffic -- and forming drifts along the sides of the roadway.  It looked like snow, or nuclear fallout.   It also looked like an impossible job for SDT -- sort of Three Stooges in scope -- trying to pick up millions of packing peanuts that are crazily blowing around on a huge bridge.  The West Seattle bridge is continuously bombarded by crosswinds.  The wind was playing with the peanuts and making them dance and tumble and float and blow around EVERYWHERE.   How do you hope to collect them with that kind of wind blowing.  Not to mention SDT had to contend with the cars, cars, cars, and trucks, trucks, trucks, and motorcycles, and the occasional wayward and birdbrained bicyclist who were all attempting to get across the bridge.  So what is the solution?  SDT decided to close half the lanes off so they could catch the little boogers and clean them off the bridge.  Uh, that is a very ambitious goal -- or should I say "impossible" - but you gotta give it to them -- they tried.  I can imagine the crew that was dispatched -- they probably said something like this " You want us to go and do WHAT!!!????"  then under their breath "F-ing unbelievable -- what dumb @$$ came up with that brilliant idea -- oh well, it all pays the same so why do I care?" 

Several large plastic bags of packing peanuts were also rolling round on the East bound lanes -- getting ready to be busted open by oncoming traffic.   I guess it could have been much worse -- it could have been other things dropped off a truck and loose on the bridge -- such as chickens, or marbles, or thumb tacks, or super glue.

Anyway -- the packing peanuts were a huge distraction that slowed people down.  But actually it was the SDT closing off a lane that allowed all of us commuters a chance to study the aerodynamic properties of packing peanuts.   And of course it was a mess (the commute and the bridge covered with green, Styrofoam)..  But it was at least different and unique.   If we have to be backed up in traffic, like we are every day anyway, it might as well be because of something interesting and different -- and green packing peanuts filling the air and piling up like snow on the bridge qualifies as "different".

As a footnote -- I was chagrinned at the amount of packing peanuts that were set free into our pristine NW ecosystem.  I couldn't help but consider how long those packing peanuts would be around to muck up the Earth (I think they say Styrofoam does not decompose or degrade for at least 15,000 years).   At least they were on a trajectory to land someplace in the Duwamish River -- which  already produces three eyed frogs anyway.

1 comment:

  1. No, packing peanuts are not form Heaven,

    They are from Hell.

    They are EVIL.

    miws

    ReplyDelete