Laurabelle's Blog

This afternoon when I walked out of the Service Center, there was a freshly-painted white crosswalk across the mouth of the parking lot over to the (also recently laid) path on the other side. Next to the crosswalk was a van labelled Joe's Parking Lot Services (or something like that) with said services listed below, including striping and crack-filling and what have you. And I thought, Wow, I didn't know there were people who did that!

Now, you may think me a bit dumb for thinking that stripes grew on pavement, and you would be right if that were actually what I thought. I dimly remember my parents telling me how stripes get painted on roads, and parking lots aren't too hard to extrapolate. It merely didn't occur to me, although it's perfectly logical, that there are businesses making their profits by providing this service.

I almost feel ignorant for not being aware of this, even though it's something that has never been relevant to my existence. I don't have a parking lot, but if I had one and wanted stripes on it, I'd probably find these people to do it for me. Otherwise I don't need to know.

What it comes down to is that I can't be aware of everything. If I tried to be aware of everything all at once, I think my head would explode! In order to cope, I have to perform a sort of triage to determine what's relevant or important and what's not. It's frustrating to realize that I don't even know how much I'm missing, but it's also comforting to know that I will never outgrow new discoveries.