show me your badge, jackass

for the past N>4 months, the city of <retarded city where i work and used to live before i moved out on account of it's just too retarded> has been doing inconceivably unnecessary road repairs on both of the major routes between my home and my office.

each day, as i descend the final bridge before the perpetually torn-up intersection that marks the home stretch to work, i confront a new, bewildering configuration of orange-cone delimited "lanes". today, as i approached, i noticed that the middle of the intersection was completely torn up, and cars were all entering the right turn lane to go "straight" in a wide berth around the "workers" and their "work". some were actually turning right, but most went straight. i needed to go straight. as i approached the green light, several cars went straight ahead (by which i mean, they made an exaggerated arc through the intersection to avoid getting their cars covered with jackhammer dust). the car immediately in front of me turned right. as i slowed nearly to a stop to safely pass through the intersection, a moustachioed construction worker sauntered lazily from my car's right front quadrant toward the left front, carrying a cone, which he placed directly in front of my car, blocking my progress with the cone and his person. he approached my window and said something.

i rolled down my window, turned off my radio, and asked, "huh?"

"you're in a right turn lane," he told me.

by now the light was red so i had all the time in the world to engage this helpful person in meaningful conversation.

"how am i supposed to go straight?" i asked.

he pointed at the incomprehensibly coned-off section to my left. "there," he said, as he walked off.

i looked back and tried to figure how i could possibly have ended up "there" instead of "here", from which everyone before me had gone straight without incurring the ire of this traffic shaping genius. making a right turn at this point would add an additional 10 minutes to the remaining 1 minute of my journey to work.

as i pondered, failing to make out any path that could have led me to "there", a thought occurred to me:

this is a guy with an orange hat and a molester moustache, not a badge and a copstache. i broke 17 traffic laws just backing out of my parking space this morning. what the fuck do i care about this maroon?

when the light turned green i circumvented the cone and went straight on my merry way. i suspect all the people behind me did the same.