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Filling a New York City pothole is not such a difficult job. Clean out the hole, pour molten asphalt cement
 around the edge, shovel in a few loads of hot asphalt, rake it flat, tamp it down, seal the edge with more
 molten cement, and you're done.

Now repeat that 25,000 times.

That's how many potholes city Department of Transportation crews have filled in since early November. And
 thanks to the recent cold snap, more than 13,000 -- from the huge C-sized holes that swallow cars to the
 small-but-nasty A-holes that knock your front end out of alignment -- have been repaired since late December.

Like payphone repair men who return to the same vandalized phone every week or bridge painters who start
 priming for a new coat while the old coat is still drying, a pothole repairer is a modern Sisyphus, the
 mythological Greek king who spent eternity pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll back to its starting
 position.

You fix one pothole and there's always another one just up the block (at least Sisyphus had warm weather). But
 despite the monotony, motivation is not a problem, said Joseph Ross, a 6-year veteran of the pothole wars.

"We're like dentists filling in the cavities of New York," said Ross. "I pull up to a C-hole and say, 'Let me
 at it!'"

With potholes opening up all over last week, I joined a DOT crew on 96th Street in Ozone Park to volunteer my
 services and to do a little no holes barred reporting. After a crash course in the art of pothole-repair, I
 was filling solo.

Admittedly, I poured the molten asphalt cement like a guy afraid to get his shoes dirty and I was tentative
 with a shovel, but the guys were impressed at my raking. And I was a natural at pounding asphalt.

"You did a good job," said area supervisor Don Savrese. "We'd love to have you full-time. We could use someone
 to get us coffee."

Ribbing aside, I felt proud enough of my handiwork to knock on the door of 137-25 96th Street.

"I guess you did OK," said Audrey Menegus, inspecting the pothole I'd just filled. "But when are you going to
 come back and pave the entire street?"

Did Sisyphus feel this under-appreciated?

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gersh.kuntzman@verizon.net