On the way to Dreamland today, I converged onto a road from one merging fork while another car did the same from the other merging fork -  but just in front of me.  (Graphic enough—or do I need to draw it?)

On top of the car ahead of was a cell phone, very clear to see.  And it was probablistically  apparent to me that the car in front had started up somewhere and driven away with someone inside having placed the cell phone on the roof (probably because it was in a hand and they needed both to open a door.)  Trying to save the phone, I started honking my horn repeatedly, waving frantically, and gesticulating madly for the driver ahead to pull over.  But since the advent of drive-by shootings and road-rage, such tactics never seem very successful unless you also happen to have a siren and police flashers available to you.  And I don’t.  Hence, I had to become more creative and actually pull into an oncoming lane (no traffic) and aside the driver and motion to her to drop her window. (no, I did not say ‘drawers’.)  First, she expressed to me a look of terror.  Then a surrendering look of acquiescence.  But when she finally rolled her window down and I told her of the bounty atop the roof and she realized the spirit of my intervention, she smiled ever so broadly and articulated repeated thank-you’s as if I had just stopped her from eating a piece of chicken infected with bird-flu (H5N1).

Then, a bit later while I was strolling about a Dreamland closed-down with gates locked for the night, I ran into a guy, along a converging path, who seemed kind of lost and reticent at the sight of me.

“You know this place is closed now?”  I asked him.

“Really?  Wow,” was his reply.

“Yep.  Do you know the way out?”  I asked trying to be helpful.

He pointed in the direction of a distant un-viewable gate and said “Yes, the gate up the hill.”

“Well, that’s closed now and so you, if you’re just on foot, you can hop the fence back there,” I said pointing to where I had just came from.

"Thanks.  Are you a cop? “

“Hell, no,” I said, “Even if I were, there's need to worry about that.”

He seemed much relieved and indicated that he was familiar with the fence out.  “But are there a lot a cops around here, here at night?  I like to just walk around here late at night but don’t want to get into trouble.”

“Oh yeah,” I said, “there are a lot of cops here at night.  I bet you’re standing on the grave of one right now.”

Funniest thing is that he took a little nervous hop away from where he was standing, looked down to where he had stood, and then realized my invented observation was no threat at all.

“Take it easy,” I said in parting.  He took my mention of exiting and headed to hop the fence out.  I followed my instinct for truth, justice, and the blogging way and proceeded to the heart of Dreamland, to sit at a picnic table, drink a beer, and compose this.

Cops: They intercept and enforce. God bless the good ones.

Me: I just interact as I happen upon.  I can't help it that I have that damn 'cop look' sometimes.