I Wish I Drove A BullDozer

There are days when I wish I drove a bulldozer.

It's not that I dislike my truck, because I actually enjoy driving my pickup very much. But there are times that tooling around town in a massive piece of earth-moving machinery would be quite handy.

Actually, the word bulldozer is a little dated. It has been replaced by the phrase "track-type tractor" which is slightly more descriptive and probably translates better into other languages.

That kind of thing is important to international industrial giants like Caterpillar who make things like bulldozers. For instance, the French translation of "bulldozer" is roughly "Le Moo-Snoozer." You're not going to sell a lot of manly earth-moving equipment with a name like that.

Or perhaps, a group such as the Narcoleptic Bovine Anti-Defamation League deemed "bulldozer" offensive and Caterpillar succumbed to their whining that the word was demeaning to cows with sleeping disorders. Stuff like that happens all the time in our overly politically correct society.

But while Caterpillar may have folded under pressure from the NBADL, I'm not going to. I played with a Tonka bulldozer as a child, therefore bulldozer it will be.

So, as I was saying, sometimes I wish I drove a bulldozer. But not any old dozer would do. I definitely wouldn't want a wimpy one. Caterpillar makes a D8T Track-Type Tractor -- that is their term, not mine -- which boasts 310 horsepower and weighs in at a commanding 84,850 pounds.

It's actually a middle of the road model. Cat makes one that weighs almost 3 times as much as the D8T with nearly triple the horsepower. That's a little too big for my taste. Just finding a parking space would be a chore. Although, I do suppose that when you drive a bulldozer, you can pretty much park wherever you please.

The first thing I would do with my bulldozer would be to pimp it out.

I would have some flames painted on the side to help emphasize my ride's blistering 7 miles per hour top speed. And I'd probably put some of those spinner thingamajigs on the treads for effect. I would also add a killer sound system to help drown out the diesel engine when I was going full-bore.

For my maiden journey, I think I would head out to Seimers Drive and while crossing Kingshighway at Bloomfield, I would flatten the stoplights at that intersection. While I was at it, I would rumble down to the bridge-route intersection and do the same thing there as well.

I believe that if you have the good fortune of being able to drive a bulldozer that you should use the power to help benefit your fellow citizens. It's like being a superhero, but without the skin-tight uniform and cape.

My goal in leveling the stoplights at these intersections, would be to force whatever organization maintains them -- I assume it is either the City or MODOT -- to actually get their timing mechanisms right. I've sat at both of these lights numerous times, waiting to cross Kingshighway with not another vehicle in sight. It's rather irritating and worthy of the wrath of Captain Bulldozer.

When I would finally get out to Seimers, I would continue my vigilantism and widen a number of the opening into the various parking lots and side roads located along this busy Cape Girardeau business corridor.

I've observed that a lot of people who drive on this street feel the need to come to nearly dead stops before making right hand turns. There are only two possible explanations for this type of behavior.

Those people are morons or the openings to the various parking lots and side roads are just not wide enough.

As comedian Ron White has aptly noted, you can't fix stupid, but Captain Bulldozer can certainly correct the other situation in short order with his trusty D8T.

After completing that mission and taking a quick pit stop -- diesel for my Cat and a McDonald's Southern Style Chicken Sandwich meal for me -- I would head for home down Route K.

Any drivers who were spotted talking on their cell-phones would feel the full fury of Captain Bulldozer. Well, provided that I could catch them. As I said, the D8T's top speed is only 7 miles per hour. If you are going that slow on Route K then you deserve to be run over by a 42-ton piece of earth-moving equipment.

And on the way home, if a police officer happens to pull me over, and asks me if "you and that track-type tractor have been in the vicinity of South Kingshighway or out on Seimers Drive or have squashed a couple of slow-pokes on Route K" I would have to smile and truthfully say:

"Why no, officer."

My Google stats nose-dived this week dropping to 958. However, my Yahoo searches held basically steady at 2830.

As I said last week, I'm going to start including my cat's Twitter account stats. Her current obsession -- beside Cat Chow and gravy -- is the weather. She typically gives the Cape weather three to four times a day. Her Twitter account is patchthecat. She currently has 14 followers, up from 9 last week.