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Okay, here's something that has never happened to me before...
Working last Wednesday morning, I got a little hungry and thought I would go grab me an Egg McMuffin. The closest McDonald's is about fifteen minutes away.
I jumped in my car and headed out.
In a few minutes, rolling along the two-lane highway between me and my Egg McMuffin, I came upon road construction. Glad to see it, the road needs a facelift.
The flag-man had a stop sign up as one of the lanes was closed and, for about a mile, the other lane was being used for both directions of traffic. Only one direction could go at a time.
You've come upon these, yes?
I dutifully stopped at the stop sign and waited. After a couple of minutes the flag-man spun his sign around and waved me on. I gave a wave back, polite motorist that I am, and proceeded.
However!
I was cruising along about thirty miles per hour minding my own business, when up ahead I saw a huge dump truck heading in the opposite direction in my lane directly for me. It was the only lane, of course.
"How can this be?" thought I. But it be...
Now, if I swerved left I would be turning my car into brand new asphalt. If I swerved too far right, I'd land in a ditch along some farmer's corn field. What to do?
The truck wasn't stopping nor was it deviating.
So I slowed way down...inched to the right...placed my tires to the very top of the ditch and pulled to a stop. On came the truck. I grimaced and half-closed my eyes. He leaned to his right without scuffing the new asphalt...squeezed by me, looking down the whole way to make sure he didn't rip off the side of my car.
Whew! I swear if my car had had one more coat of paint...
But then I had to finish my trip. Ahead was a hill. I couldn't see if there was oncoming traffic beyond it.
I headed up the slow slope anyway, easing, crawling along as far to the right as I could, bracing for the metal-death that surely was being chauffeured up the other side. (Dramatic, I know).
Fortunately, there was none.
As I came over the crest of the hill, I saw the other flag-man in the distance. As I got closer, I spied the problem.
He was leaning, his jeaned butt resting on the hood of his car, sign between his legs held upright by his right hand. I could see clearly-facing my direction-that the sign said: Stop.
Which means, of course, that he had his sign backwards. I gave him a frantic and slightly annoyed shrug of my shoulders, and a look that said, "Dude!" as I went by. Startled to see me, he immediately looked up, saw his sign and, in a panic, flipped it around.
Which way a sign faces...such a little thing, just a flip of the wrist. Attention to detail. It's the small things sometimes that make the biggest difference and carry the largest consequences.
Oh, and by the way, I took a different way home.
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