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On Friday night, folks on the east side of Honolulu braced for the horrors of another Kalanianaole water main break — a monstrous traffic snarl; another miserable commute from town to east-side bedroom communities; a weekend of canceling plans, sitting at home, watching online traffic cams to decide whether it’s worth it to leave the house for groceries or if it makes more sense just to stay in and break open the hurricane stash.
But by Sunday morning, wonder of wonders, the break was fixed and traffic was back to its normal busy weekend pace (as opposed to full-on, hard-core, crazy-making stop-and-go.)
Did the Board of Water Supply crew in the hole making quickie-speedy with the pipes and the tools to fix problem get a big mahalo banner? A gift basket from Big Island Candies? A box of mangoes?
Nope.
Probably not even a shaka as they finished up and moved out in the dark hours of early Sunday. The gratitude expressed by people over not getting stuck in a traffic mess is rarely equal to the fury and blame when something breaks or crashes and people get stuck.
It’s human nature. We don’t always cheer when things go the way they’re supposed to, though we go nuts when things go wrong. (However, there’s the sense that traffic in Hawaii has become so unpredictably but reliably awful that people are becoming resigned to waiting without moving. Sigh. Again. Whatever.)
There has to be a bit of let-down for the crews who shorten hours or days of traffic jams by doing fast work but never get lifted up for the everyday heroes they are. Likewise, the folks who do maintenance along the roadways. Preventing a problem — by checking pipes, trimming tree branches, sending out Freeway Service Patrol to whisk away stalled cars — is pretty thankless.
But when things go wrong, folks are actually bragging on social media about how long they waited in traffic to get home and what dingbats the folks working on the problem must be. It’s hip to be aggrieved.
Even in our own heads, we never really think, “Hey, thanks for fixing that water main break so quickly,” “Mahalo for the overnight roadwork because that woulda been a bear during the day,” “Boy, oh, boy, you got that downed pole upped again really quick,” “Hey, nice job whacking up the blown tree into movable chunks and getting me heading to work faster than I thought. Now I’ve lost my platinum excuse for showing up late at the office, but that’s OK. Sort of. Not really. But mahalo.”
Perhaps gratitude is only felt in that split second when you’re in the car, expecting a smooth, unfettered journey and you see the line of brake lights up ahead and realize, “Aw man, there’s no way to turn around.” In that moment, you appreciate the jam-free days so much. At the same time, though, you start working up a tirade against “those guys” who are somehow making you late.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
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