What Is This? Pork? Can I Get Some Potato Salad?

OK, so there is a fire, and it is getting really close to the highway. The trooper selects an overpass about a mile from the fire and blocks it at the exit ramp. It's pretty simple; the road is blocked by fire, you have to exit here and go north to another road. Drivers get impatient so they pull out onto the shoulder and drive up to the exit where they have to wait their turn. Good job, guys. The fire trucks now have to go onto the grass to get to the fire. Some clever motorist sees that if a water truck can drive on the grass, there is no reason why he can not. Firemen now have to cross the incoming lane, bump over to the access road then rejoin the main road after the overpass.

What was a ten minute wait has changed into a half-hour, because the trooper has to direct two lanes, two shoulders, and one grass of traffic into one, and tell each driver that they have to go north. While I'm getting instructions, a woman in the grass lane gets impatient (the trooper is making them wait the longest) drives around us, gets onto the exit, then goes back onto the highway and drives into the fire. To make matters worse, she's not the only one.

I didn't hear of any fatalities that evening on the news, so the firemen must have stopped them and made them turn back. I'll be honest here: the volunteer services are some really great people, but sometimes heroic action brings out the inner Napoleon. This isn't always a bad thing. The trooper, a paid professional state employee, has to be polite to people. The firemen, volunteers, can get all drama queen with those who cross them, to greater effect.