NOW PLAYING: The "Beezhinn Project"

5 August, 1999
The recent 'heat wave' seems to have broken just a bit in the past few days. It's still hot, but not Way Hot™ -- and for that, we must be thankful.

Summertime means 'hot,' certainly, but summertime also means 'road construction.' Which for the most part, seems to consist of five guys standing by the truck drinking iced tea while another guy leans on a shovel in the bottom of a hole.

I see a lot of those bright orange barrels blocking off a lane on the highway for miles and miles -- nothing's going on, but the barrels are there anyway. And the everpresent orange road signs for the "Beezhinn Project" as you enter the Barrel Zone.

Yes, the Beezhinn Project is immense -- it never seems to end, it's everywhere -- crossing county and even state lines, a massive road works initiative. But for what? What are they building?

The Wife pondered those very things from the time she was a young child until well after she got her driver's license. She'd be rolling along down the highway, and, why look! Another sign for the Beezhinn Project! Will they never finish? It was as though the Beezhinn Project went on forever.

It's true that when five guys are drinking tea and one guy is leaning on his shovel not a whole lot of work is getting done... but for the Beezhinn Project to drag on for years and years? Something had to be wrong.

Of course, something was wrong -- but it had nothing to do with the bizarre "Beezhinn Project" and everything to do with the way that The Wife was reading (and pronouncing) an orange roadsign lettered:

B-E-G-I-N
P-R-O-J-E-C-T

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