Why?

Lydia was a bit frazzled this morning, a departure from her usual calm.  She said that she had to leave her home before 5a because of some news she received about a market downtown.  She keeps a stall at this market with some of her sewing projects.  (We also pay her on the side to shorten some pants.)  She was told by a friend that there had been some commotion at the market and she should go to make sure her stall was OK.  Thankfully, it was.

But when she arrived, she found out that there had been plans by the city council to clear the area surrounding the market of its street vendors.  The vendors apparently hadn’t been told about this plan.  In the middle of the night, heavy equipment was brought in to tear up the street.  A nightwatchman had drifted off to sleep and was killed by the equipment operators.  “Why,” Lydia asked, “didn’t they just honk their horns before getting to work?  Certainly, the man would have woken up and his life would have been spared?  Why, couldn’t the city have warned the street vendors about this plan, so that they would not have lost valuable wares?”