Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Salt of road


Road salt.  I hate road salt.  Well, I don’t hate it, but I certainly don’t like it.  It’s all over campus, in little piles by the sides of buildings where it’s been swept up.  It wouldn’t be as bad if they just used regular rock salt or whatever, but the substance they use is green.  Salt is not green.  It makes white icemarks on the sidewalk.  It doesn’t even always work.  There’s still a patch of ice between two of our campus buildings.  How do I know it’s even been salted? It’s pockmarked.  Like someone shot it with a mouse-sized machine gun.  It’s been heavily salted.  This ice won’t leave until March.
            Road salt also makes my backpack much harder to roll.  Although that isn’t a huge reason to give up road salt, seeing as I’m probably the only high-schooler in the region with a rolling backpack.  But, you might be saying, wouldn’t snow clog the wheels worse?  Yes, but it’s possible to avoid snow.  Also, snow melts when I go inside.
            Salting roads will eventually get that salt all over cars.  It’s horrible for the paint.  Which doesn’t affect me now, but will in a few years. 
            All I’m saying is, there must be a better way to get ice off of roads and sidewalks, even when the temperature is too low for the “salt” in the first place.  Something that won’t corrode paint and stain sidewalks, and isn’t some weird chemical that’s a color that no salt should ever be.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Goozack

I hate doors.  I really do.  They’re annoying, and they get in my way.  School doors may be the worst.  The double doors may have a post down the center.  Or they may not.  And they’re inconsistent, too.  So you may be walking through the center of one door, and then: Wham!  You hit the center post of the next.  The center posts also impede traffic by making people go around.  Often there’s space for a whole other column of people down the center.  And, with a rolling backpack and lots of stuff, I might have trouble opening most doors.  The doors in one of the campus buildings are very old and very heavy.
            Not that non-school double doors aren’t annoying.  I have hit my head on doors more than once.  I have hit my head on doorknobs at least twice.  One of the two doors to my room is either all the way open or latched shut.  There is no in-between.  Someone unlatches it, it slowly swings open.  The other door to my room is hard to latch.  My bathroom door doesn’t stay latched.  When our basement door is open, it’s like a whole new wall, blocking traffic.
            There is only one type of door that I like: the revolving door.  Not only is it fun, it works.  For the heavily burdened as much as those who have nothing; for the disabled as well as the strong.  It is the best type of door to possibly have.
            I don’t always like chairs, either, but that’s another blog.