Gum out and play
Jun. 26th, 2006 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfieldSometimes I'll be walking down the street in my fair city, most often to or from work, when I'll see a uniformed work crew addressing the sidewalk pavement with what appears to be a highly pressurized combination of air and water. For a long time, I wondered what the heck they were doing. After all, the undertaking was far too gentle to be any sort of construction or deconstruction task and far too surgical to be part of the city's vast street-cleaning operation -- especially considering that a hundred people are going to traipse right over that same spot by the time you pack up your hose.
Eventually I learned that what I was seeing was a gum removal procedure, fulfilled by extremely specialized private companies with amusing names like "Gum-B-Gone" and "Gumbusters" and "Annie, Get Your Gum." These presumably skilled technicians are using the pressurized spray to remove those unsightly black spots from the sidewalk pavement.
Generally, they do a good job. I assume this because I never really even notice all those little black spots on the pavement until I see the Gumbusters in full swing, which suggests that the Gumbusters are on the scene at the moment the gum problem becomes unruly. But once I do notice it, I see it everywhere. And it makes me wonder: Is it really gum? Like, chewing gum? because (A), how does it get all black like that? It can't just be dirt, can it? (B) if there were really gum all over the place, wouldn't it get stuck to peoples' shoes before it had the chance to settle into a flat little puddle? and (C) I've lived in a major city for seven years now, and I've been walking on sidewalks for even longer, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen someone spit gum onto the sidewalk. We are not savages. We are not major league ballplayers. This is not the Old West, where people spit various bodily fluids onto the ground as a way of repelling rattlesnakes. And even if it were so, one would expect a greater concentration of sidewalk gum in the vicinity of public wastebaskets.
The only explanation I can think of is that these companies are using a broader definition of the term "gum," to include sticky and dirty substances including but not limited to sealing tar, motor oil, shoe rubber, bug detritus, wheelchair sludge, ice cream toppings, silly putty, tourist drool and, yes, chewing gum. Thank you, gum guys, for making each step a little bit cleaner.
Eventually I learned that what I was seeing was a gum removal procedure, fulfilled by extremely specialized private companies with amusing names like "Gum-B-Gone" and "Gumbusters" and "Annie, Get Your Gum." These presumably skilled technicians are using the pressurized spray to remove those unsightly black spots from the sidewalk pavement.
Generally, they do a good job. I assume this because I never really even notice all those little black spots on the pavement until I see the Gumbusters in full swing, which suggests that the Gumbusters are on the scene at the moment the gum problem becomes unruly. But once I do notice it, I see it everywhere. And it makes me wonder: Is it really gum? Like, chewing gum? because (A), how does it get all black like that? It can't just be dirt, can it? (B) if there were really gum all over the place, wouldn't it get stuck to peoples' shoes before it had the chance to settle into a flat little puddle? and (C) I've lived in a major city for seven years now, and I've been walking on sidewalks for even longer, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen someone spit gum onto the sidewalk. We are not savages. We are not major league ballplayers. This is not the Old West, where people spit various bodily fluids onto the ground as a way of repelling rattlesnakes. And even if it were so, one would expect a greater concentration of sidewalk gum in the vicinity of public wastebaskets.
The only explanation I can think of is that these companies are using a broader definition of the term "gum," to include sticky and dirty substances including but not limited to sealing tar, motor oil, shoe rubber, bug detritus, wheelchair sludge, ice cream toppings, silly putty, tourist drool and, yes, chewing gum. Thank you, gum guys, for making each step a little bit cleaner.
