We Should Decorate Our Potholes In Lawton For Halloween

I think it's fair to say that one of the universal frights among adults is driving in the dreaded pothole. You can't tell how deep it is rolling around at the posted speed limit. You have no idea if it'll be a little bump or the thing that makes you check engine light come on, you just know you have to avoid it. So what can we do to give a little reminder to the city about our vast array of potholes? Let's decorate them for Halloween.

This whole train of thought caught a little steam over the weekend as Critter and I were working on a project together forcing us to drive from one place to another, encountering our shock-testers in various areas of the city. Honestly, while there are a handful of perfect stretches of road in town, the entry and exit to those perfectly flat and smooth surfaces might as well be craters on the moon.

In other cities around the country, they plant flowers in their potholes. In at least two other cities, there were a few individuals that painted cartoonish male genitalia around their potholes, forcing the city to very quickly get things fixed back up. As funny as that was, I'm sure in this part of the country some judge would toss a book at you if caught. But who would honestly complain about a little Spooktober festivity in the areas of the road people try to avoid anyway?

I guess the question is "What kind of holiday decor would both serve a purpose to embarrass the cities lacking road maintenance yet wouldn't be detrimental to a vehicle passing over?"

We spent far too much time walking around Hobby Lobby, the big Walmart, and Spirit Halloween looking for ideas, but ultimately spray paint seems to be the one thing that would be effective and non-destructive to the road and cars alike. In an ideal world, we could place little zombie gnomes crawling out of them, but if I was paying more attention to my phone than the road like and hit one, I'd be pretty upset at some prankster for my lack of attentiveness too.

So what would you ideally spray paint around the thousands of deep potholes in our roads that would also be Halloweenish? Anything Halloweenie. Bones, skulls, a caricature of your old lady without makeup and before her morning coffee... it all works.

Here's a double-score... Since it's already festive, use safety orange spray paint that way it'll catch the waning attention of the Gen Z and Baby Boomer drivers that have buried their face into their phones behind the wheel, use a bright safety orange. How orange became a Halloween color, I don't know, but it is and readily available and cheap.

If you plan to participate and do your part to keep the City of Lawton to their CIP word, don't take it too far. There's no reason to be painting obscenities on the concrete. Leave that to your neighbors' driveway.

Here's to having fun while doing our civic duties. Don't get caught.