It's hard to imagine what the roads are going to look like
if winter ever kicks in around here.
I am driving down I-93 toward Boston when I see the cars in
front of me swerving partially into lanes.
There seems to be neither rhyme nor reason as some of the cars are
veering left and some are veering right. I start to suspect that everyone around me,
though it's only noontime, is drunk.
Then it hits me; or, rather, I hit it. A pothole, big enough to swallow part of my
tire and rim. Luckily my car and tire
survive the incident, and I glance into my rearview mirror to see the car
behind me take the same abuse. I now
know why we are all driving like drunkards.
We are playing that age-old Massachusetts driving game Pothole Slalom.
I find myself looking at the road in front of the car in
front of me, anticipating the next set of road gaps, for they are numerous. Sometimes I can tell where they are by
watching the flow of traffic; sometimes I have to rely on my own eyesight and
savvy.
We weave through the Maze of Tire Terror, snaking along like
a giant metal whip, nervously plowing straight through the chunky openings when
cars come up beside us and tactical maneuvers are restricted. The slabs of macadam missing from the road
are astonishing simply for the fact that plows have only been out twice so far.
It proves that either the tar is
defective, or too much overtime was paid out to overzealous plow drivers who
chose making a few bucks over preserving the integrity of the highway.
I will be driving south toward Boston on I-93 tonight, in
the dark, where the potholes will be much harder to see from a distance. I'm hoping to remember where the mega-deep
one is that attempted to rip my entire wheel off earlier. All I can do is run the gauntlet and hope my
tires are still under warranty.
If not, I've got AAA on speed dial. They probably have all the major potholes
marked on their Trip-Tiks already, so I should be good to go.
