If the stick turns pink the challenge is accepted!

One of my dear college friends, let's call her Amelia, would often call me after we were first married, with a singular question:  If the stick turns pink, does that mean I'm pregnant?

Somebody peed on that.

Over the years since we were young mothers (like a thousand years ago) Amelia and I have laughed about this.  Home pregnancy tests were then, and still are now, somewhat odd both in practice and in information.  Pink line. Blue line. Plus sign. Two lines versus one line.  Growing up in a culture where we simply did not DID NOT discuss bodily fluids, the very idea that we had to pee on something to give us information was horrifying.

I'm getting off track.

I'm reminded of the whole "stick turning pink" conversation because a number of weeks ago, my fair city sent road crews out to mark various spots where they were going to destroy and rebuild portions of the road.  Our block has been spared, although the intersections at either end of the block have been in various states of construction since early July.

But then one day we noticed...this.  This stick with a pink ribbon jammed into the grass right in front of our house.  There are no other pink sticks on our block.  In fact, we had to walk several blocks in either direction to find other sticks and those had blue ribbons and were often clumped in groups of six.

But no...we have one single pink stick in front of our house.  

And what a is a "Proposed HH?"

Hubby and I have spent some time wondering about this. We've asked around. One neighbor suggest we're getting a fire hydrant.  That would make sense except I would personally abbreviate hydrant as HY, but I'm not in city government or road construction.  I sort of hope it's NOT a hydrant because that would mean we could NEVER park in front of our own house which would be a major problem for us.  (Four cars, and a garage that can't house any of them...)

One neighbor believes they're going to put a helicopter helipad on our property. Now, while this might sound "JJ Abrams out there" it's not as nuts as one might think. See, our local hospital, which is about four blocks behind our house, has been quietly buying up local homes for years.  (Well, either that or houses are just vanishing and being replaced by grass...which brings me back to JJ Abrams.)  While there are at least three layers of homes for the hospital to gobble up before it gets to ours, why WOULDN'T they want a helipad...four blocks from the ER?

I should note that Hubby and I have also walked quite a bit in our surrounding blocks and as I mentioned we see quite a few blue sticks, but not that many pink sticks and the very, very few we've found, they have NOT had the same instructions written on them. We've seen "hydrant" abbreviated on blue sticks as "hyd."  So that ends that speculation.

I've decided it's one of two things:  Either the city is giving houses in our area some sort of weird pregnancy test (and our stick is pink) OR...and I rather like this idea...the city is challenging me to a game.  I don't know the rules, and I sure don't know what I'll get if I win...but I know this much:

I really, really, really want to start moving all those sticks around.

I was actually picturing the computer from that Matthew
Broderick movie, but this works, too.

Come on! I wake up one morning and there's a random stick in my yard and I'm not supposed to take it as a challenge?  Like the city is a giant computer saying, "Do you want to play a game?"

Nope, that's not me.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

I may just start tomorrow night. You know...in the dark...  Maybe I move my "Proposed HH" across the street to my neighbor who thought it was a hydrant. 

He's a former cop. I might not want to do that.

Still...