Fleet Week and A&L Cesspools

It is the 23rd annual Fleet Week, origins unclear to me, but each year midtown gets flooded with crisp Navy whites. Many of the events, I gather, take place on or around the Intrepid. I did a bike ride a couple days ago, in warm early evening weather, down past the ship. The night must have included some kind of reception for as I biked south an officer, in his whites, got out of car accompanied by a young woman in a long dress. Together they made their way to a tent where invitations were being checked. A few blocks further down, at 43rd, with thunder in the air, I turned around and on the return trip saw that a truck with "A&L Cesspools" printed on each side had completely blocked the Intrepid entrance. Apparently it had missed its proper turn and security was in the process of turning it around with some mild traffic blockage. No one seemed particularly perturbed that, say, al Qaeda might have had hijacked a cesspool truck, but I enjoyed the mild juxtaposition -- arrive dressed to the nines for an Intrepid event and have your way blocked by a company truck loaded, or about to be loaded, with human waste.