- Cape Rolling Out Bloomfield Road Art Trail (8/21/19)1
- Donors Pledge Almost Two Grand To Replace SEMO's Possibly Sentient ‘Gum Tree' (8/16/18)
- SEMO and The Will To (Become A Consultant) – Part 2 (6/14/18)
- SEMO and The Will To Do (You Really Want To See That Legal Notice?) – Part 1 (6/4/18)
- Judge, Jury... Trashman (6/1/18)
- Diary of Cape Girardeau Road Deconstruction (5/11/18)
- Trying To Save A Tree From City “Improvements” (4/30/18)2
The Irony Of It All
Brad Hollerbach is the Director of Information Technology for the Southeast Missourian. His opinions are his own and do not reflect those of the newspaper or its editorial board.
He writes this blog primarily for his own amusement and to parody the absurdities of the world we live in. He lives with his wife and two cats that don't really care for one another in Cape.
Calling Dibs On The Themis Street Moisture Mystery
Posted Thursday, June 24, 2010, at 12:00 AM
I just want to let everyone know that I've called dibs on IT, and as everyone who ever was a kid knows, by calling dibs, IT is mine, fair and square.
It doesn't matter that IT is smack dab in the middle of a city street in the heart of Cape Girardeau. Calling dibs over-rules everything. It's like the Supreme Court, the Pope and Walter Cronkite all rolled into one simple expression: dibs.
And the dibs I'm calling is regarding a sure-fire moneymaker located on Themis between Lorimier and Fountain Streets.
{http://www.semissourian.com/blogs/hollerbach/entry/32543/ I wrote about this anomaly this past winter} when a giant pothole suddenly appeared and I found the fish calling it home to be biting exceptionally well. But apparently someone at the city actually reads this blog and they quickly filled in the old fishing hole with asphalt. A co-worker who lives right by IT was told by the city that the pothole was caused by a sewer leak.
Funny, that I've never seen the ACME Instant Leak Asphalt Repair Kit in the plumbing aisle at Lowe's. Maybe it is only available commercially. Or perhaps the product has been pulled from the shelves since apparently, it Just. Doesn't. Work.
No, the pothole has never returned, but the anomaly still weeps. Clear liquid keeps oozing out of the ground even this past week when the temperature hit triple digits.
My co-worker says she avoids the area because she is (1) afraid that the humongous aforementioned pothole might return at the instant she is walking across it and swallow her up into the bowels of the Earth never to be seen again, and (2) the fact that the city told her neighbor that it was the symptom of a leaky sewer and it is never in anyone's best interest to stroll through raw sewage.
However, I don't buy the City's explanation and that's why I'm calling dibs on IT.
First of all, this whole thing doesn't pass the sniff test. Literally. Sewage smells, but I didn't smell any thing while standing by IT at noon when it was over almost 100.
Secondly, one would surmise that considering how deep sewers are typically buried, there would have to be a lot of pressure and a lot of sewage to cause effluence to show up on the street above.
Sorry, but I just don't believe this explanation. Water lines are pressurized, but typically sewer lines are not. Considering that the University has no water features anywhere close to this street -- and we all know SEMO's affinity for fountains -- and the City claims that a water main is not at fault and I feel that the leaky sewer line is a completely erroneous diagnosis, therefore there is only one possible and logical explanation.
A natural spring must be lurking below Themis.
And obviously it is not just any natural spring, but one of some serious pressure that is able to push its way up to one of the higher points of downtown Cape. I bet this natural spring is why Fountain Street is called Fountain Street. Probably decades ago the spring was covered up to make way for progress and then forgotten until now. Like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, IT's back!!!
But while the City can choose to ignore IT, I'm not going to. That's why I've called dibs on IT and am starting right away to bottle Fountain Street Sparkling, a refreshing natural-spring water sure to rival any of those hoity-toity bottled brands like Perrier or Crisp 'N Clear.
However, since I'm new to the bottling business, I'm warning everyone that my first batch is going to be very, very small. If you want some, you might want to call dibs.
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The mysterious wet spot on Themis between Lorimier and Fountain. The photo was taken at noon when the temperature was almost 100 degrees. |
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The first bottle of Fountain Street Sparkling. |
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