What To Do When The Road Is Finally Paved (D.M.N).

You feel as if you have been living in a war zone. Not only have you been dodging a multitude of roadblocks (see stockades)but the intolerable noise factor makes you wonder if the daily intrigue you've undergone in order to leave and/or return to your home each and every day for the past 8 weeks is worth waging personal transportation war over. You had begun to ponder living elsewhere for the duration when just as suddenly as they invaded all the trucks are gone and the street has been returned to you; peace and quiet miraculously restored. Unlike a post battle scene there are no visible scars to bear witness to the siegelike state in which you had been dwelling and although you find it hard to believe, the artillary noises have not left any permanent dents in your hearing. What stretches before you like an amazing vista (that is if you are an admirer of cement and tar) is a beautifully flat paved road. It is in fact so perfect that you are hesitant to drive on it, walk your baby in his pram or even use your bicycle lest you leave any tire marks. Digging out your old nearly worn fuzzy slippers you you put them on, go out the front door and gingerly take your first steps onto the 'new' surface. You begin to walk, (almost on tiptoes) and suddenly the street that seconds earlier had been sooo silent, is teeming with neighbours you'd forgotten you had while the war raged, you barely hear their footsteps as they shuffle along smiling at their good fortune, they have won back their street. You quickly glance down and notice that everyone is shod as you are, almost like post traumatic syndrome behaviour it seems that you are all reluctant to mar the pristine patina of the street where you live. Suddenly you all turn at the sound of a strange noise you can't quite identify which has broken the hushed tones that had prevailed until this point in time; then you see him, your neighbour the firefighter. He is bravely wending his way down the street on ROLLERBLADES!!!!