Sidewalk Sprinklers

I've always wondered why people water their sidewalks.

I was walking home a few days ago when I encountered one such display of water waste: the entire sidewalk was wet, as was half the street, because of a few sprinklers set up in front of a house. I don't know if the actual grass was wet, since there was no way for me to check: I had to cross the street, and then cross back in order to get to my house. But the sprinklers definitely seemed to be rotating in a manner that covered more sidewalk than grass (and I'm not mentioning flowers because there was just no type of flower arrangement whatsoever. Go figure).

Now don't get me wrong, this is fabulous for children. I wish I was still 6 and could just run down the sidewalk and be magically and instantly refreshed. But unfortunately I'm not, and although I could pretend the main reason I am bothered by it is because it's such waste and we are running out of ressources (which is true), it really bothers me because it forces me to cross the street unecessarily. Or if I'm distracted and happen to walk through the water, it wets my precious shoes (Not that my shoes are overly expensive and rare, but still, i cherish them. And water on shoes is never a good thing). Or, when I decide to be brave and run through, I still have to stop in my tracks, look at the water marks, figure out the current position of the water and the path it follows, and then run frantically and dodge it.

I won't lie... the latter is actually loads of fun. But I still think that if I was passing by in a car and saw someone focusing so intently on a water sprinkler, I would probably laugh for a while. Just like when I see people fighting through bug clouds on humid evenings. That's always a good laugh...