SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
BROWNSVILLE — Officials with the Texas Department of Transportation confirmed Monday that this week’s paving operations on International Boulevard are technically a tour, and that Brownsville motorists who fail to collect all six daily detours between Cleveland and Morton streets will not receive the commemorative certificate of delays.
The Hot Mix Tour, which runs 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the south side only — because August in Brownsville is apparently when asphalt is at its most comfortable — kicked off at Cleveland and Taft before moving to Roosevelt and Grant, with Burton and Morton scheduled as the tour’s encore dates. Drivers who complete the full itinerary will have experienced every barrel configuration TxDOT currently owns.
‘We Will Never Close Two Consecutive Streets, and Other Promises’
“We want to be very clear,” said TxDOT spokesperson Carol Pimentel-Truckenmiller, standing in front of a machine that was baking the road like a bolillo. “At no point will we close consecutive cross streets at the same time. If Taft is closed, Cleveland’s neighbor is open. That’s not a detour, that’s a choose-your-own-adventure. We’re basically Disneyland, if Disneyland smelled like fresh hot mix and every ride was a left turn onto Paredes Line Road.”
City officials, however, posted a slightly different calendar than the state, with the city’s alert quietly extending Morton Street through an extra day. When asked which schedule was correct, a Brownsville Public Works spokesperson shrugged so hard their reflective vest rippled.
“The paving is coordinated,” the spokesperson said. “The map is more of a vibe. Morton is closed Monday, or Tuesday, or possibly both, depending on which president you trust more.”
Local drivers reported mixed feelings about the tour format. “I’ve already collected Cleveland and Taft,” said one motorist, who asked to be identified only as Stuck on Roosevelt. “Tomorrow I’m going for the Grant-Roosevelt combo, which is the rare double. My cousin got Burton last year before it was cool.”
Merchandise and Scoring
Officials confirmed that drivers earn ten points per detour obeyed, twenty if they obey it twice, and a fifty-point bonus for finding a detour sign that points at another detour sign. Anyone who reaches International Boulevard’s frontage of their own house by 5 p.m. is entered into a raffle.
“The hot mix is really coming together,” Pimentel-Truckenmiller added, gesturing at a shimmering ribbon of road that had reached the approximate temperature of the surface of Mercury. “By the 25th — or the 24th, again, depends who you ask — International Boulevard will be smoother than ever, for approximately eleven months.”
