A few weeks ago, a tow truck company in Omaha, Nebraska got an unusual phone call – one that they were beginning to get far too often. A car was stuck on top of a big rock in a random parking lot. And it wasn’t the first of its kind.
As an homage to the natural landscape around the area, the city frequently uses boulders to decorate its streets and parks. But Omaha rock keeps winding up underneath hopeless trucks that didn’t see it coming. It’s sitting on a small concrete island in a parking lot, signaling that cars need to go around it. But somehow, many of them just don’t.
After almost a dozen reports and towed-away cars, the town started to get a good laugh out of the strange reoccurrence. Some are even going so far as to take selfies with the Omaha rock, and write reviews of it online. And many are chiming in to explain what makes this so funny to the locals. Arrow Towing manager Steve Rains told CNN, “The internet loves a good justice story, especially when it comes down to petty crimes being brought to light, like jumping a curb to gain three seconds on your day – and instead finding yourself stuck on top of a rock for half a day.”
Another Facebook fan of the rock, Matt Roberts, boils it down to the feeling of community: “There’s a lot of division and anger in the country and this is just a random thing that is amusing to most people regardless of any other politics…It’s just comedy at the expense of people’s laziness and lack of attention, thinking they are smarter than… a rock.”
Event planner Caitlin Sharazi explained, “The whole point of the boulder is to make the curb it sits on more visible, so people stop running it over. You see big rocks that serve the same purpose all over town. For some reason, the people who frequent this area just can’t seem to get it.” That certainly captures some of the humor. She herself decided to join in on the fun and pose all-out with the town’s new favorite rock.