Finger Lickin' Good...Potholes?

As my wife and I drove to Easter "linner" yesterday (that's a hybrid of lunch & dinner b/c my parents refuse to eat dinner at a normal time), we engaged in a little game that I like to call "Dodge the Pothole and Live to Tell About It." This is a progressive game that can be enjoyed all year long simply by replacing the word "pothole" with different city obstacles such as, bikers, cabs, buses, pedestrians, etc. Nevertheless, it reminded me of a story that I read about a few weeks back and wanted to address.

Apparently, Kentucky Fried Chicken has given me yet another reason to love them. No, it has nothing to do with the introduction of their new Mashed Potato Bowl, but a far more concrete reason, or asphalt to be exact. A few weeks ago, the brass over at KFC headquarters came up with an interesting proposition for our fair city. They want to fill all of Chicago's treacherous potholes for free. Yes, you read me correctly--they want to fix all of our potholes for FREE. The only thing that KFC asks in return is to leave a stenciled KFC logo on the repaired pothole. Sounds like a fair trade to me.

After hearing this amazingly generous offer, Mayor Daley's response? "If they give us $25 million or $30 million, we'd be glad to look at it. I want the money up front. I'll take $50 million, if you give me $50 million." So let me get this straight. Someone wants to come to our city and fix one of the biggest problems that face city drivers these days--for free, and you want to charge them millions of dollars to come here and make our huge problem disappear. That sounds like perfect Chicago logic, doesn't it? And I'm sure that $50 million would go straight to bettering the school system in Chicago, and not into envelopes passed underneath dinner tables at Gibson's and Gene and Georgetti's!

Chicago Department of Transportation Commissioner Tom Byrne's reaction to KFC's unbelievable offer? Well, he's worried about the "quality of asphalt KFC intends to use" and has concerns about "KFC's plan to paint ads on the repaired potholes." I hate to point out the obvious here, but we have a pothole problem in Chicago every year Tom, why not check the quality of asphalt that the city has been using? Also, have you checked out the side of a CTA bus lately? The Real Housewives of NYC is on Tuesdays at 10pm. How do I know this? Because I read it on the side of one of your buses! Could it be that you don't want KFC coming into Chicago and showing the public that 6 city workers are not needed to fill one pothole? Again, this makes perfect Chicago sense!

Obviously the city has our pothole problem well under control. That's why last Wednesday as I watched the 10 o'clock news, I saw a story about west side residents in the Austin neighborhood who were so fed up with their pothole problem, that they began filling up the potholes themselves. Amazingly, even though these gentlemen weren't city trained experts, it only took the two of them a few minutes to fix each pothole. No reports on what they stenciled on the their potholes, but if it were me, a big middle finger would have been my choice.