Day 1 of a 3 day set*.....

or, Two reasons why I think people are stupid.

Apparently it rained on base last night. I was not aware of this. Our base has a small problem with drainage of said rain water, so the other housing unit, Marinai, (as in the one I don't live in) had what amounted to a small lake in front of it. Since this road is the primary path to get onto base, many people traverse it. Not today. When I got to work at 5 a.m., I was informed that instead of sitting in a nice warm unit all day, I would be standing at one end of said road in a blaze orange vest with a flashlight (as it is still dark out when I start work) and inform commuters (some of which either did not see me or did not question why a police officer would be standing in the middle of the road wearing bright orange and waving at them and simply kept driving. Fine by me but I am sure not calling you a tow truck to pull your car out of the ditch that you can't see because it's covered with water!!!) that they should take the alternate route to work. Reason one that I think people are deficient in their mental capacities is the following conversations that I had with some particular people today:

Me: Good morning, SP-105 is closed due to flooding, you will need to take the alternate route to work today.
Them: Well, how bad is it?
Me: Bad enough for me to be standing out here telling you not to go that way. (duh)
...
Me: Good morning, this road is closed because of flooding in front of housing.
Them: I work in Marinai, can I get there?
Me: in front of housing

***
The second reason is more comical, to me anyway...

Part of my duties today, aside from telling people where not to go was to check on the progress of the lake drainage project. I.E. drive through it and see if it had gone down at all. I was on just such a mission in the late morning, right before we decided that the lake/puddle was now receded enough to allow a normal flow of traffic. In front of me was a small Opel Corsa, (read Ford Pinto only French) making its way through the water. In the opposite lane was, of all things, a guy on a Harley Sportster. (This is dumb, who drives a motorcycle through a lake?) Anyway the Opel is not going particularly fast but is still creating quite a wake, he is driving through at least three inches of standing water. The Harley guy sees this impending wave coming for him and makes rapid gestures toward the driver of the Opel to slow down. The Opel driver of course does not slow down and soaks the Harley guy. The Harley guy's gestures quickly take a more obscene turn as he is obviously quite upset. Harley guy then points at me in my police unit and then viciously at the Opel guy, as if I should give him a ticket for splashing people. Eh, that's what you get for driving a motorcycle through a lake.

*I hope I survive.