Most of us drive to work in the morning.  Except for Amish people, welfare recipients, and Superman, though I’m fairly certain that neither of my readers fall into those categories.  And, like most people, few things strike dread into my little Ben heart like seeing one of those signs that tells you that half the road is closed and so you get into the lane that’s going to be staying open and then watch as all the selfish buttweasels of the road zoom past you in the soon-to-be-closed lane, merging at the last moment at the expense of more generous souls than themselves (Buttweasels of the Road, by the way, would be a totally sweet name for a band).  But one thing you are not likely to see as you drive to work, is Screech and the Road Crew (which would also make a stellar name for a band).  The other day though, that is exactly what I saw.

 

            It was, I believe, a Tuesday (that’s Dia del pantalones de los yacs, for all my readers South of the Border), or possibly some other day.  Anyway, as I drove along down Chippenham Parkway, named for the abundant (and resplendent) ham fields of Chesterfield, I passed a road crew.  In most respects, this was an ordinary enough road crew, a bunch of tough-looking guys, wearing wife beaters and jeans, standing around leaning on their shovels as their foreman gave them their marching orders for the day.  The foreman however, was not just any foreman. He was, in a word, Screech.  Yes, good reader, it was as if Screech himself had returned from the dead, or from South America, where he’s raising and army of Hitler clones, or possibly just hanging out in North Dakota, teaching baboons to do macramé, only to take up the mantle of highway foreman guy.  Now, as you might expect, most of the normal looking construction guys were looking at him kind of funny.  “Surely, Screech, the very world itself is your cashew.  What calls you from the marbled halls of your ivory palace to soil your hands with us mere Plebians?” they seemed to say.  But I think that for all of their wonder, it was not entirely unmingled with a newfound respect, like when Elvis joined the army, or when Darth Vader volunteered at that bake sale.

 

            Now, the question which next occupies my mind is this: What road construction project could possibly be so terribly important that Screech would return, whether from the very grave, or merely from the red-litten aeon-ageless City of Kadatheron, which rises lonely and majestic by the magical gumdrop river of Snarg.  All I can think of is that some higher power wishes to ease my daily commute to work.  Perhaps knowing of the recent plan between Twitch and I to conquer the world (or at least the Richmond Metro Area), the VDOT gods have desired to smooth my way along, by improving the last mile of Chippenham Parkway.  If this is so, I shall put up many temples and Chuck-E-Cheese’s in their honor when at last the triumphal day arrives.  Perhaps though, the forces behind this recent Screechly repaving are less than benevolent, and wish merely to lull me into a false sense of security, that they may speed me to my destruction all the sooner.  Only time will tell.  Even the wisest cannot always know the future, for as Twitch himself, diabolical genius that he is, once said, “Sometimes I just flap my arms, and hope something happens.”  Sobering words, and ones that we all ought take more to heart.