NaBloPoMo, 5

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who's dic....

Oops! Not here to recite dirty nursery rhymes, but instead to educate, enlighten, and broaden your horizons. Okay, who am I kidding? Not that either. I'm here to tell you about the public graft I saw today, IN MY FRONT YARD!

A little background ... Our street successfully petitioned to have a sewer line put in so that we could get rid of our septic systems. You may recall, we had strange happenings in our plumbing and septic lines and so when given the opportunity to give the town a new car's worth of money for the right to send our poop down its pipes, we said HELL YES! The work commenced sometime in September and has been ongoing ever since. Part of the work included replacing the main water line that runs down our street. And somehow that meant that our (the street's, not ours personally as our estate is too modest for its very own) fire hydrant was moved about ten feet over. Not sure why, other than the fact that the town is charging us an arm and leg for this project and so they needed to make it look good?

In any event, that brings us to today, when I found myself coming home from the doctor's and having to wait for a huge wide-load truck to pass before I could continue up my street. I was maybe fifty yards from my driveway, so I pulled over to the side of the road behind a parked silver truck that had an official looking plaque thing attached to the license plate stating "FIRE CHIEF." I assume that the huge wide-load truck was blocking me which is why I was able to see one of the workers hand the Fire Chief a HUGE WAD OF CASH. HUGE. Now, maybe it wasn't some sort of pay off. Maybe there was no corruption and our new fire hydrant will work just fine. Maybe the worker was the Fire Chief's son and he was paying his dad back. Maybe they had a friendly wager on the Yankee game (27 World Series Championships!!). Heck, maybe the Fire Chief is a bookie collecting is illegal gains. Whatever the case, I can say with certainty that I saw a man take a wad of money from another man, fold it in half, put it in his pocket and then walk to his truck. A truck that had a special thing attached to its license plate that stated "FIRE CHIEF." And for the record, if you are going to do suspicious stuff, you shouldn't do it while driving a car that advertises who you are.

Anyway, the whole thing seemed hinky and I did not like it one bit. No siree. I felt a little dirty. Uncomfortable. After the huge wide-load truck passed and I could drive, I pulled up my driveway, into my garage, and intentionally did not make eye contact with the two men. I am pretending like I did not see a thing. Not. A. Thing. Well, unless there is a fire and we don't have sufficient water in our new fire hydrant and someone's house burns down. Then you bet your ass I am SO TELLING.

I said during my last pregnancy that if I was found murdered, it was probably Crazy. All the gift giving insanity and baby lust sending her over the edge. This time, if you find me dead in a pool of my own blood, look to the Fire Chief and his money grubbing self.