Monday December 15th, about 12:40 p.m., I was driving out Cattle Point Road, passed the turn-off toward the Golf Course and neared the work being done on the new Animal Shelter.

I saw a flagger and began to slow. He turned his sign from “Slow” to “Stop,” and so I put on the brakes. And then, the sign still turned toward me, he turned his sign from Stop to Slow.

So, I began to drive on through.

After I passed the machine blocking the right-hand lane, I saw a red vehicle just beyond the machine coming out of a driveway to my right, headed into a collision course with my own car. Another worker on the scene was yelling at that driver to stop.

I hadn’t seen that red vehicle until I was past the machine in the road. And I assumed the “Slow” sign the flagger was aiming directly toward me was meant for me.

Apparently not, however, since…as I passed the flagger, he screamed at me “I had a f…in’ stop sign on you!”

The truth is, he had a Slow sign aimed at me. I did not have a Stop sign aimed at me.

And furthermore, I had no idea another vehicle was being told to come along at the same time. I couldn’t see that vehicle. I thought I was the only traffic on the road at that moment.

So, not only was the flagger inept in directing traffic correctly, I found it astonishing that a public employee would even think of screaming obscenities at the traffic he was responsible for directing.

I’m curious, who trained him?

Suzie Thomas/San Juan Island