While living a relatively idyllic life in Babel, there is the occasional minor glitch in an otherwise perfect environment. Not that we want to complain mind you. We only mention them so that we can be more diligent in avoiding them. Stressors are those things in life or people who bring stress with them wherever they go. Al Capp the creator of L’il Abner in the comics had a character who travelled around the mythical community of Dogpatch with a dark cloud over his head and left a wake of mayhem and chaos in his passage. Now that guy was a stressor.
There are people in Babel like that. For example Babel auto drivers can be stressors. Consider the chap in his pickup truck who came to the farmers’ market one day, sold his produce early and with time on his hands and a jingle in his jeans discovered the delights of Dunlop Street. He decided that city life was for him and he sold the old homestead and moved into town. He works at Costco now and still drives that old pickup to and from work each day. Nobody ever taught him how to drive, he has never bothered with a driver’s licence and he thinks the Canadian one-fingered salute is just how townies say ‘hi, how are yuh today.’ Well, he’s a townie now and he is very friendly about waving that finger right back at you.
It must be Babel’s potholed and patched streets that make him think he is still out driving behind the wood lot. Mind you driving in Babel is also a stressor. If you know the name of the street you are on, it will change in the next block, if the street is still going in the same direction. Everyone is lost in Babel. Did you know that all the police cars in Babel have to be supplied with global positioning systems (GPS). Police dispatch uses GPS coordinates instead of addresses. It helps a bit. You know how a GPS will say ‘recalculating.’ In Babel, they say ‘Oh shit.’
Speaking of stressors, did you know that Babel works to an entirely different schedule of time? This town is out of step with just about every country in the world except Jamaica. You have heard of Jamaica time, have you? It is supposed to be the only part of the world where ‘right away’ means ‘tomorrow’ or maybe the next day. When trying to arrange for a workman to do a job at a specific time for us in Babel the other day—and being cognisant of Babel time—we tried to pick a specific week but had to settle for a commitment to a particular month. It seems no job in Babel is ever completed on time. We think the city has passed a by-law to enforce that.
Illustrating this unusual work ethic, we said an overdue farewell to the guys and gals working on the sewage works early in the summer because they were packing up their lay-down yard and seeding the area with grass. They promised us they were heading on to the next great challenge of the sewers. Do you know their lay-down yard is now a mess of frozen mud and broken pipes and their squatters’ huts are being held over for a winter of ice fishing?
Maybe it is the planning—or lack thereof—that causes it. Or just maybe, and this could be the stressor, there is too much planning. The Allandale train station is an excellent example. In their infinite wisdom, the city fathers (and mothers) of Babel have been screwing around with the historic Allandale train station for quite a number of years. The Allandale station is that thing at the south-west corner of the bay that currently looks like it is wrapped in a giant condom. They are spending millions of dollars on the restoration of the old station without a clue as to what they will eventually use it for.
This year (maybe, in Babel time) the city will finally build a multi-million dollar train station (and tunnel) at the back of the train station site on Gowan. Now, just why a very expensively restored Allandale train station cannot be used as a train station, for which it was originally designed, is a total mystery.
But Babel is not a place of logic. And that is why we say that Babel is a place where planners come to die.
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