(f)utility work(s)...

I walked past the sign, but the words stayed with me...this evening's rain drops percolating in tandem with derivative musings. The sign, a fluorescent beacon marooned in a frenzy of impassivity, was out of place. Peering to the right of the bike trail and then to the left...I saw not a trace of activity, useful or otherwise.

Somebody may show up at that very spot. Tomorrow perhaps, to do some kind of work...I esteemed. This generous presumption then lead to wanting assessments on the nature of labor, jobs, careers....interplays between utility and futility, purpose and pointlessness, meaning and insignificance.

A sign out of place is sometimes just a sign out of place. But, living in DC infuses most of us with a perfumed cynicism and that orange placard and its prescient ironic context could just as easily have been, or will be an epiphany or an epitaph.

Did I read too much into the sign? I've had a long few weeks at work, and the fatigue effortlessly generated a series of questions: Should work speak for itself? Should work produce something that is visible? Did I need a sign that read "pedantic neurotic."

Then I smirked, and kept walking home.