The other day I was driving home in my Prius and not really thinking about anything in particular. The amount of driving I do makes me kind of zone out. Don’t think that I’m not paying attention — I am — but when it comes to entering my own neighborhood, nothing much changes so I don’t usually have to be on the look-out for any dangers. I know when to hang a left or veer to the right — it’s a no brainer.
That all changed when I veered right just like any other day but something caught my eye. My brain noticed something was different but it was so different that it almost didn’t register. Was that a FORK?! at the fork in the road? I looked in my rear view mirror, and sure as hell, it was a fork. I laughed out loud, something I never do alone in the car, and vowed to go back to visit.
At dinner, I told my family about the fork in the road. They didn’t believe me and thought I was exaggerating about its size. They had me so convinced I must be mistaken that I began to doubt my own story. Before the dinner dishes were cleared from the table, I grabbed a daughter and said, “Let’s go see the fork.” I left everything where it was on the dinner table (including my own forks) and hopped into the car.
My daughter and I drove to the site, and she laughed the moment she saw it. We got a photo from the car at the first pass but it wasn’t perfect so I had to make a loop around and try again. I still wasn’t happy with the picture, so we went around yet again. We laughed so hard each time I had to pull a u-bee because we could imagine the neighbors saying, “Well, here comes that Prius again. Should we call the cops?”
Finally on the third attempt, I decided whatever we had was “good enough” to remember the Fork in the Road.
Fortunately I was that persistent in getting a decent photo because the City of Carlsbad took it down the next day.
A week has passed and I still hope that the city brings it back. There have been various protests by the local community in the form of forks; I even came up with my own protest (and never followed through), but the beautiful silver fork designed by a retired teacher has not been put back.
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