Relative Something

My curiosity was genuine. A year ago, we had the asphalt company that put in our driveway come back to patch cracks and reseal the entire surface because it seemed the original protection hadn’t lasted as long as expected. Over the winter, those same cracks just opened right back up.

I was a little disappointed, but surmised the natural freeze/thaw conditions were the culprit, not necessarily a bad job on the sealing/patching quality. It seemed to me that hiring them to come back and give it another try would be throwing good money after bad.

But after weeks of walking over these disconcerting cracks and moping about them each time, I finally decided to call the owner to ask if he would come look for himself and to offer his professional opinion about the crack repair not lasting. Mostly, I wanted him to know exactly how the driveway they installed looked after only four years.

You never know how this kind of call will go, but to my surprise, my timing was perfect. They were finishing a driveway in the area, and he would be able to come look at it that very afternoon. Doubling my surprise, two company trucks pulled in together. He brought two of the guys who do the work so they could all see it and put their heads together to come up with a solution.

Oh, I forgot to mention, before they even arrived, he texted me that he intended to make any improvements necessary at no additional cost. This all happened on Friday. The crew is coming today to repair any cracks that need attention.

All I needed to do was make the call and ask the first question.

“Could you come out and look at it?”

I give some credit for the fortunate results of my query to the fact that I wasn’t trying to get something for nothing. A form of altruistic reverse psychology, maybe? Something like that.

Meanwhile, here’s a shot that reveals how dry it’s getting around here:

Like the static formed by rubbing a balloon on hair, Mia’s swishing tail was building up a static charge.

If she would just ask, we could wet it down for her. Maybe that is why the horses seem so happy when Paddock Lake has water in it.

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