The Battle over the Little Green Men (Updated)

by Robin; photos by Leslie

We walk every day on a loop road near our house called Charlijo.  It's got a huge meadow, so it is a change-up from the forest that surrounds us.  It's a lovely walk, with views of the Alaska range and lots of sun.

The only negative is that this one house has these ugly little green plastic men placed on the road to encourage driving slowly (for the children and pets they don't seem to have).  It's a dirt road.  People drive slowly here naturally.  But, these people really want to make damn sure they do.

Here they are! Aren't they amazingly ugly?

Many days on our walks, the little green men were laying on the ground.  Since it is a fairly windless area, it looked like someone probably intentionally hit them or pushed them down. So they would go down, then up, then down, then up.  We found the battle amusing and, frankly, were hoping someone just stole the things.  (I swear we haven't touched them.)

(added 5/23: Leslie saw the wind knock one down, so now we know that any gust could do it.  Therefore, it could be an entirely natural phenomenon.) 

One day we showed up and the people had scattered rocks around the little men as some sort of discouragement.  Do you think that will stop the wind?

So here are the rocks...even farther out in the road than the men are.

Frankly, the rocks really, really made me want to sneak out in the dead of night and steal those suckers.  But, alas, there is no dead of night in Alaska in May.  Maybe someone will do them in during the dark of winter? I can only hope so for the others who live on that road.

(Update May 27: The little green men, it turns out, are creating problems in other neighborhoods like this one. Thanks, Larry, for the link!  And, in chatting with a neighbor about them, they said the owners claim that someone was driving too fast in the neighborhood and rocks were being kicked up on their lawn.  The problem with that becomes this:  why do you put more and bigger rocks for the offending driver to hurl your way? )

No one would get away with these things in Santa Cruz, that is for sure.