* stares intently at username, but says nothing *

that's the joke

That was one thing I could never do when I was an "urban explorer" (fancy term for trespassing in to municipal water infrastructure), manholes always freaked me out so much my friends couldn't even peer pressure me.

I was under the impression that the grates which don't have a city name are older from a time before people realized that they can be stolen and sold for the value of the scrap metal.

Then municipalities started to stamp their name on it and metal recyclers couldn't take them anymore unless you took it to a shady recycler so the value dropped.

No idea how true that is though.

Doesn't matter, they'll sublet it to some poor student and call it 'close to the city centre' because the king''s shit floats through those pipes.

He comes from a land down under.

From French chute, fall, see also parachute, "protect against falling".

Thank you... I knew it wasn't "shoot" but no other spelling looked right