EROSION
(Publication Date: March 30, 2007)
—Let’s leave this place exactly as it is.
—Who’s going to close this place now? Forget it, don’t bother, leave it! Look, working hours are over too.
—You’re right, anyway, it’ll close on its own through minor erosion.
—Of course...
***
The dialogue above is entirely fictional.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the people who dig potholes in our roads!
I’ve written a lot about potholes on this page before.
The potholes I keep driving into continue to bother me; I assume they bother you too.
The fact that nothing is being done about this is even more bothersome.
So I’ve put together a compilation of what I wrote before and what I’m thinking now.
Read on and see if you agree with me.
*
Potholes are what keep me alive!
Potholes are what make me who I am!
Whenever I get on a road in my car, the first thing I pay attention to is whether it’s full of potholes!
If there are no potholes on the road I’m about to take, I don’t take it!
If I’m too late and end up taking that pothole-free road, I get bored and my spirits sink.
That day, I don’t want to go to work, go home, or go anywhere at all.
That’s why the roads I take are always the same.
I always use the same pothole-ridden route.
That road is mine.
It’s the road that makes me who I am.
It reminds me of the city I live in.
It keeps me from falling asleep while driving.
It reminds me that I’m not alone in the country I live in.
After every pothole I drive into, I remember certain people, with respect!
Sometimes the roads I know to be full of potholes suddenly become pothole-free.
I get mad at some people, asking, “Why? For what reason?”
Then I don’t take that road again.
Not until someone tells me they’ve driven down that road and remembered certain people with respect.
At that moment, the world is mine.
The thought of driving again along that pothole-ridden road I’ve always been used to and loved excites me.
I’m as happy as a child then...
Most of all, I love the potholes on main roads.
When I’m driving at the speed limit, a pothole wakes me from my reverie.
At that moment, I realize how pointless it is to chase empty dreams.
Sometimes I drive over potholes with my friends.
The expressions on their faces make me happy.
Together, we remember certain people, with respect!
That’s when I think:
I’m not alone.
In short, I love potholes.
*
Joking aside, I’m really fed up with these potholes.
I want to ask:
If you’re doing infrastructure work, why don’t you fix the place you’ve dug up afterward?
Didn’t anyone tell you, “If you dig up a place, you have to fill it back in afterward, or it’ll become a pothole”...?
What are you waiting for?
Do you have some idea like, “Let erosion happen, and that way the roads we’ve riddled with holes will close up on their own”?
I don’t understand; I can’t understand.
*
As I said in my opening sentence, I’ve brought up what I just wrote many times before in this column.
But I see—and drive into—potholes continuing to be part of our lives.
No solution seems to be found for the potholes in our roads.
Could it be that the people who are supposed to fill those potholes think we’ve gotten used to them, as I described above?
Please, let this problem of ours end already.
Is it that hard?
See you on Monday... Be respectful in traffic!
All the texts and other content on this page are original and belong to Cem KAR. They may not be used, even in part, in any way in print or any other electronic medium (CD, Internet, etc.) without permission.