Smash

I'm not a big believer in omens, but I'm starting to suspect that someone was warning me not to come to work today.


It was a lovely morning, warm and fresh and sunny. I was scooting along Riverside Drive at top speed, idly glancing at the gleaming black sports car overtaking me, when a sudden blur in front of me whipped my attention back to my own lane. I had just enough time to see a fishbowl-sized piece of glass plummet down the last metre or so before it hit the road and exploded.


A FREAKIN' STREET LAMP HAD FALLEN OFF RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!


Fortunately for me, I am a dullard. I have the alert, finely tuned mind of a lizard lying on a warm rock. By the time my mind had registered that a FREAKIN' STREET LAMP had just smashed across my path, and tried to engage my "GAAAH! PANIC!" response, my long-suffering body had already swerved my scooter around the skittering debris without slowing, and I was halfway up the next block.


If I'd been travelling fractionally faster, this half-inch thick piece of glass would have hit me. If that in itself hadn't killed me, being thrown off my scooter at top speed probably would have. And if by chance it didn't, being run over by another commuter would have finished the job.


I rang Western Power, who maintain the lighting along that particular road, and made my complaint, since FREAKIN' STREET LAMPS shouldn't fall off for no apparent reason and nearly hit people. Unfortunately Western Power's complaints system doesn't appear to make any distinction between minor quibbles and serious safety issues, so my complaint has probably just been lost in a sea of mundane gripes, ie:


11:31am - Woman complained that her streetlight is too bright and is keeping her cat Simon awake.

11.32am - Man complained that the dark green paint used on lamp posts clashes with the colour of his Audi.

11:33am - Man complained that he was nearly hit by FREAKIN' STREET LAMP that fell into traffic for no apparent reason.

11.34am - Man complained that streetlights produce too many greenhouse gases and we should only travel during daylight hours, in Toyota Priuses, while listening to lectures by Al Gore.

11.35am - Woman complained that her streetlight is too dim and her cat Anthony can't see where he's going.


Of course now when I travel home I'll be so busy keeping an eye on the streetlights that I'll crash into a tree, or a pedestrian, or a slow-moving Toyota Prius. I'm so doomed.