Dear taxpayers,
I think I've figured out where a lot of Obama's "jobs" money is going. After spending time driving in Washington, Montana and around Alaska this summer I figured it out in one of those light bulb moments that temporarily blinds you into reality.
By my calculations, based upon the number of orange traffic cones I've spotted in my travels, somewhere between 22 and half a million jobs were created in the transportation industry. The jobs entail moving cones. This is probably done at night, when no one will be harmed from the sudden traffic pattern changes, and there are no workers around to ask just what the hay is going on.
My sister Judy and I drove from Spokane to our hometown of Whitefish, which is near Kalispell and Glacier Park. We were headed there to visit relatives and to do a lot of "remembering when." Along the way we picked up our little sister, Becky, who lives in Missoula, hoping -- since she's the youngest -- that she could help us out with the memories.
Judy: "Didn't there used to be a bar over there where that fancy new bank is now?"
Me: "I remember that bar. It had old-time saloon doors. You could hear the jukebox two blocks away. One night when I was driving by there was a brawl out on the sidewalk."
Judy: "You ever go in there?"
Me: "Heck no."
Becky: "What bank?"
So much for helping with the memories. Anyway, I digress. And isn't that an odd word...digress. Why not just admit I'm off on a tangent?
Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. Back to the cones. For miles and miles in Montana -- and we're talking double digits here -- there were cones. The cones would close off the right lane for a bit and then, as if they couldn't make up their minds, would close off the left lane. Then they'd take a break and wouldn't bother to line up at all before starting in again.
There was no work going on within these cones. No trucks, no flaggers, no men in hard hats standing around scratching their behinds and pretending to be bosses. There wasn't even evidence that any work had ever taken place. The road was clear and smooth, except for the occasional lump of furry road kill.
Since then I've been keeping track and have discovered unattended cones all over the place. Thousands of them. Just lined up and waiting for another crew, evidently, to come move them to another site or maybe just walk them to a new spot across the road.
At first I thought maybe it was my friend Nardo doing this. I will not divulge Nardo's last name and I made up his first name. Nardo, who lives Outside, likes to collect things and not long ago he accumulated a small grouping of traffic cones. After careful study, he selected a quiet residential street and one night carefully set up his cones, effectively notifying drivers that the street was blocked. He kept track and weeks later the road was still unusable. For all I know, it still is. I think there is a big message in Nardo's experiment. What it is, I don't know, but surely it speaks of a flaw in our societal fabric. The word stupid comes to mind.
Well, I'm not stupid and I'm saying that there are a few million cones out there that are being shuffled and moved, loaded and unloaded, stacked and unstacked, and there is no work going on. Just cone-moving.
Pay attention, people, and you'll see for yourself. And next time you hear BO bragging about the jobs he's creating you'll know the inside scoop. I think the only thing he has created is a whole army of cone people.
