Cranes and Billboards

A number of years ago, a main highway consisting of three lanes each way made its way through our city. Before that, all we had were smaller highways. Ever since we were "blessed" with increased traffic, we were also “blessed” with increased construction. Over the past couple of months buildings have been cropping up in every part of our city. I was driving down one of the main roads the other day when I observed six tall cranes in the vicinity of one intersection. Now, keep in mind that I drive that way a number of times every day and this was the first time I noticed this many cranes. I do not consider myself to be blind in one eye and unable to see out of the other but I swear that I never saw any of these cranes being built. I drive by in the morning. I drive by twice in the afternoon and I drive by after work but I never had the opportunity to see them rise from the ground.

Come to think of it, of all the cranes I have seen in my lifetime, I have never seen a single one being put together. So... What really happens? Do they just like appear out of nowhere? Does someone just finger snap them into existence? Have any of you ever seen them built before? Or have they simply just appeared?

Something else seems to simply appear without my knowing… New billboards. The reason billboards are constructed is so that people such as us regular folk will notice them as we drive by. They are built in areas where we are bound to notice them and yet... How many of us have ever seen someone putting them up or stripping them off? I mean, I swear that a different one goes up every week on billboards throughout the city but I only seem to notice them when they are already up. I can almost guarantee that I have yet to see a billboard guy in the past year or two years or three or...

So what is it? Am I again blind? Am I simply unobservant to these phenomenons? Or do they just happen to grow and appear?

I have often sworn that I would sit in front of a billboard and wait for some guy to come along and change it but I assume that it would be a waste of time. Have you ever tried watching a pot of water boil? Have you ever tried to watch a clock change? Remember the saying? A watched pot never boils or a watched clock never changes? Well I think that there is some truth to those sayings.

Maybe at least once this summer I can be a witness to an historic event like the “changing of the sign” or the “growing of the cranes” and when I do, I shall report them to you. I suppose that if I am going to do all this, I should also witness the “boiling of the pot” and “changing of the clock.”

I think I need to get a life!