9.03.2025

Sidewalks are symbols of neighborliness, right up there with little free libraries. When I'm in a place with no sidewalks I like to install them at night while everyone's asleep, only there's always that one person, a lady with insomnia whose remedy for an unquiet mind is to stand over the kitchen sink and stare out into the night. Maybe she expects to see a raccoon or a deer or an armadillo depending on where we are in this. She's concerned about crime, you can be sure about that. Sidewalks lead to a four thousand percent increase in burglaries, she heard somewhere, so when she sees movement just outside the cone of light from the street lamp, a shadow that resolves to reveal a clumsy guy in a ninja suit from the costume store unrolling a prefabricated length of sidewalk like he's laying down sod over the droughty patch of prickly grass out there, you better believe she's gonna do something about it, only she doesn't expect me to be so open about all of it, so disarming, and when I explain how civil my motivations are, that I'm just trying to bring a sense of community to things, a sense of order and peace and respect, she's a little bit surprised at how this makes her feel, and that's how you're gonna beat 'em, I always say, one insomniac at a time.