playing with cars

[asakiyume]

There is a young princess who loves to play with cars and building blocks. Her father the king is a city planner, and each summer the whole highway system becomes her toy. Her father works in a skyscraper overlooking the ring roads and the interstates, and every Wednesday, he brings his daughter to work with him and lets her play in a room on the top floor where there's a diorama of the city. She puts little model traffic cones here and there on the diorama, and down on the actual roads, they put up real traffic cones, and traffic is diverted accordingly.


(photo source)

She moves model cranes and cement mixers here and there, and the real things race to their assigned locations.


(photo source)

In the evening, she watches the elaborate, twisted paths of white headlights and red tail lights that her diversions have created. Commuters sigh. The whims of the royal princess must be endured.


(photo source)

Comments

[roseneko.livejournal.com]

When my brother and I were young, my parents used to tease him about leaving out his toys, and how look, now they'd gotten big and were doing important work. I always suspected he did it on purpose after that. :)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Hahaha--maybe so, huh!

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

A game for motorists.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

If only we all had as much fun with it as she does!

[greylistening.livejournal.com]

Wow. This is faaaaaaar better than the words I come up with when I'm dealing with road construction!

Brava!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! Well, the construction I was driving through was a spaghetti of roads near some skyscrapers, and I got to wondering...

Plus, EVERY SUMMER. -_- Because roads are actually always, always breaking down and needing maintenance.

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

My friend once said that road construction is the backbone of our economy.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I really believe it. It never ends.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I hear her big sister is over it now, especially when she gets delayed on her way home from riding school. Not that she can complain, of course, since she did it too when she was young, but really, does she have to do it all the time?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Yep, it always feels different when you're on the receiving end. Pedestrians curse automobiles, then when they're behind the wheel themselves, they curse pedestrians.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Once there was a very naughty princess . . .

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

You should just see the elaborate detours she invents!

[c-maxx.livejournal.com]

I curse CalTrans as well- can't they finish that fwy rehabilitation? Or has the contractor not made enough money yet?

If our projs dragged on like that, the City Engr would have our you-know-whats.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Some projects seem to last forever; in other cases it's that somewhere along the route is always in need of repair.

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

I love this.

And it kind of makes me think of playing Sim City-esque games....

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Reality is her Sim City.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

When and where I grew up, no construction project was ever finished. They just took away the "under construction" signs after a while. I was surprised when I moved to Ontario and found that they finished things up pretty smartly. I thought it must be because water and winter freezing impelled them. It took quit a while longer to realize that in many places, construction projects are routinely finished.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I used to think the Big Dig would never end... but then one day it did!