It's not often I get into the "big city", but recently a conference at a downtown Marriott Hotel caused me to make the trip into the endless sea of smog.
I arrived in the cement jungle at about 6AM, early enough to beat the mad dash of commuters and the streams of pedestrians that seem to ignore every traffic signal.
Following the conference, I inched my way into mid-day traffic for the trek home. It was madness, trucks were double parked, pedestrians jay walked at every gap within the park cars, cyclists couldn't decide if they were cars or pedestrians and opted instead to leap from sidewalk to road at a moments notice.
I inched along.
I came to a one way street, and it beckoned me with it's promise of directional traffic. So I cautiously made the turn, narrowly avoiding the eldery gentleman standing in the middle of the road, the bicycle courier doing wheelie hops around pedestrians, and the gaggle of business men who were ignoring the light.
As I made the turn with success, a cop on foot madly began waving me over to the side of the road. What now?
I pulled over.
"M'am, do you know what you did wrong?"
"Well officer, I apologise, I know I got a little close to those business men but the light was red and truthfully I was trying to avoid the old man and the cyclists."
He stared at me.
"So you didn't see the no right turn sign?"
Um. No.
He took my license and registration, and peered at it.
"From the country?"
"yes sir, and heading back that way now"
He stooped down and did a visual sweep of my station wagon. Poster depicting the different cow species, a Brooks and Dunn CD, and my rubber boots amuck with cow manure.
He handed me my license and registration.
"Have a nice day m'am. Go home now"
And so I sped away back to the rural roads - where the only thing I have to worry about is the odd chance of a deer cutting me off.
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