A fatty day

County workers are in my neighborhood this week ripping up and reinstalling slabs of the sidewalk that line my street. Somebody came through a few weeks ago saying they were going to be installing some kinda water lines or cables or something. I wasn't paying attention. For all I know they're probably looking for weapons of mass destruction.

Damn you, Patriot Act!. Damn you!

Anyway for a few days now one piece of the sidwalk in front of my house has been broken up into pieces so that these "county workers" could plant some sort of intelligence devices outside my home. Little do they know, there's no intelligence to be found here but I digress.

Yesterday morning the cement truck shows up along with three guys whose job it is to replace the sidewalk. I carry Meryl out to the mailbox under the pretense of checking for mail even though our mailman never shows up before noon. I just wanted to see what they were doing.

"You guys having fun?" I asked. They just kinda chuckle so I ask. "Anybody want a beer?" I was not joking. I had a plan.

Two of the workers give a courtesy laugh while the third one says,"I tell you what. You bring it out here in a cup where my boss man can't see and I'll drink a beer."

Not wanting to seem like a bad host, I went in and poured the entire contents of two beer bottles into three party-variety paper cups and sat them out next to the newly poured sidewalk. The three guys apparently had left to go repair sidewalk elsewhere in the neighborhood, so i just left the beer there for them to find once they returned.

I quicky went back in, retrieved my daughter from her Bright Starts Round we Go activity center, removed her socks, and carried her out to the sidewalk so she could leave her footprints in the cement where they would be preserved forever more. Or at least until the government feels it needs to further destroy things that were put in place for the common good.

Anyway I picked Meryl up, held her above the sidewalk and lowered her feet onto the wet cement. Only her feet didn't quite stay on the wet cement. They went in the wet cement. Not such that I successfully left her footprints in the cement either. I mean her feet went ankle-deep into the cement. Not exactly what I had planned.

Now not only had I totally effed up the work these guys were doing far beyond the point of being cute, but I had also left evidence of the fact that I was the culprit. The plan was that maybe if I tempted them with sweet sweet liquor they wouldn't fill in the footprints.

No luck.

When I came back out, I noticed the three cups of beer were all empty and cast aside. Also the ankle-deep holes Meryl had left were now filled in and smoothed over. I was actually kind of glad. I had wanted to make cute baby footprints, not potholes the size of hamburgers.

Assuming they were kindly providing me with a second chance at defacing government property, I again took Meryl outside, roller up her pants legs and placed her, gently this time, into the cement.

Much better.

One footprint was still a little off, but this time our artwork definitely looked like baby footprints and some hazardous technique used to dissuade skateboarding. I took the empty cups back inside and threw them away.

You'd think these guys would get tired of covering up the footprints of an innocent baby whose daddy is kind enough to provide them with libations, but no. I'll have you know it took me four times of taking my kid outisde (once waking her from a nap) to stick her feet in the uncured sidewalk before these guys finally quit for the day and went home.

Fllash forward to the evening when my wife goes out to admire our handywork and says, "Somebody wrote A FATTY DAY in the sidewalk next to Meryl's footprints."

"A fatty day?" I ask making certain I heard her correctly.

"Yes, a fatty day."

"You must be misreading it. Who ever heard of a fatty day?" I asked.

"Go see for yourself. It says a fatty day."

Low and behold, some ne'er-do-well even more miscievious than I took a stick and scratched in bold letters A FATTY DAY.

I like having my kid's footprints in the sidewalk outside my house, but frankly I don't want the words a fatty day to greet me everytime I go to the mailbox. It doesn't even say have a fatty day. It just says a fatty day.

Normally I'd call the county and ask them to come fix it, but since I too am guilty of the very thing this fatty fantom did, I can't really tattle. Even I know that free beer will only buy you so much leeway.

What's a father to do?

Having watched the workers cover all evidence of my debauchery I knew it was possible to erase A FATTY DAY with the aid of a few household tools, namely a pushbroom and a trowel. Because I don't own a trowel however, I had to use a the long edge of a snow shovel instead. The sun was going down and the cement was curing, so I knew I had to work fast, but with some effort and determination I partially succeeded in somewhat erasing A FATTY DAY.

Sort of.

It looks better than it did anyway. You can still make out the F in FATTY and the Y in DAY, but I don't think you'd be able to look at it and tell it once said A FATTY DAY.

Unless you're the culprit who did it. In which case, I will find you.

Oh yes.

I will find you.