One of the most annoying things about living in the province of Quebec (and there are many) is the roads. Not only are our roads utter crap, but they will then re-pave the roads, using the same crap stuff as last time just so that it will need to be done again several years later. This keeps the road construction companies rolling in dough. And seriously? You can tell you’re in Quebec without road signs. Years ago, my sister-in-law lived in Ottawa. I was dozing in the car on the way home and the car was rolling smoothly along the Ontario roads. All of a sudden, it was like driving over crumbled gravel; I opened my eyes, and saw signs showing we were now back in Quebec, land of the atrocious asphalt.

Anyway. The point of all that is that our suburb has been undergoing so much road work that it’s chaos to drive to half the places we want to get to. One day we had to go to George’s parents’ house and what should have been a five minute drive ended up taking us 20 minutes because we had to go so far out of our way just to avoid the traffic caused by rush hour combined with construction. Thank God I wasn’t trying to get to the hospital to give birth or anything because I would have been having my baby on the side of the road.

Right now our own streets are being ripped up and redone, which is LOADS of fun. Traffic is insane and the noise levels can get quite appalling. On the one hand, it was kind of fascinating to see the machines they use. Like this, uh, “thingy” which shreds up the asphalt and then spits it all out into a big truck to be hauled away to lands unknown:

And then this little zamboni-esque vehicle comes along behind it and essentially dusts and sweeps away all the leftover debris. I like it because it’s cute and also fairly quiet, not making any more noise than your average street cleaner does.

But the steamrollers. Oh my LORD, the steamrollers. I’ve never been so close to one before and I had no idea that a) they are just about as loud as a plane breaking the sound barrier, and b) they can make an entire apartment complex vibrate, right up to the fourth floor. Breanna has been freaking out for two days now because it scares her. It will start up and she’ll shriek, “What’s THAT?!” with big, round saucer eyes, and then she climbs up my leg like a monkey on a tree and clings to me, asking, “Steam? Okay! Okay Mommy! It okay!” as she waits for my confirmation that it is indeed okay.

Right now they appear to be on lunch break since it’s half past noon and all is quiet out there for now, but Breanna is napping, so inevitably they will most likely start up soon, waking her up before she’s had a decent rest, which will make her lovely company by late afternoon. The steamrollers already ruined supper last night, what with the fact that the overachievers were still working at 6 pm – I got to eat my meatloaf with Breanna perched on my lap, and she ate bites of her own meal in between “What’s THAT?!” wails. Fun times!

Do you know what they sound like? If you’ve ever seen your basic sci-fi movie you’ve heard similar sounds. When the heroes of the movie are hiding in some underground bunker or in the storage area of a space ship, or whatever, and the evil robot-esque villain is searching for them, there’s a sound that signals it’s getting closer, and you sit with baited breath, wondering if they’ll be found. And it sounds just like the steamroller in this video that I took from Hayley’s bedroom window:

Seriously. I’m living in my own sci-fi movie. I just have to close my eyes and I’ll find myself in some post-apocalyptic story, hiding out with my family and waiting for Vin Diesel or Ah-nold to come rescue us. I hope I get a really big rocket launcher to protect myself. Or to use to blow the steamroller up if it wakes my daughter up.