Everyone on the scene was frustrated. Those of us with enough local knowledge to get off the construction-clogged interstate escaped after enduring only two miles of the eight-mile tailback.

The guy behind me drove a macho white truck with one of those grills that moves cows and cop cars out of their way. He was NOT happy, but you couldn’t really call it tailgating when everyone is inching bumper to bumper along the two-lane local side road.

Finally we cleared the interstate snarl from the side road, crossed the overpass, and with a row of commercial semis, my new friend Mr. Grill-against-Mine and I began merging back onto the Interstate.

I could see it coming. Grill Guy planned to surge around me the moment he cleared the merge barrier. So I swept onto the interstate quickly, because if I hadn’t, I would have eliminated the possibility of the semi in front of me getting on at all. And the semis had been nice. They’d kept up their speed and they’d kept a few eejits from going up the shoulder to the exit back when we were all getting off.

Maybe that vibe was flowing from my wee white Prius, given what happened next.

As I took my rightful place on the highway and let the semi ahead of me in, Mr. Grill swerved back around me into the merge lane. Glory be, he was pulling a lawn mower trailer, and the thing swung erratically as he gunned it past me. Giving me a very deliberate and prolonged middle finger out the window.

Either homicidal rage blinded reason, or he flunked geometry in school. Grill Guy swung in front of me without leaving room for the trailer, so I slammed on my brakes.

Meanwhile, from those who had elected to wait patiently through the snarl some miles back, commercial trucks were still coming up the left lane. So when Mr. Grill-not-Geometry swung into the left lane to try and go around the truck I had let in, well, he almost got killed by the truck approaching at a good clip from the left.

This is where I consider him to have made his biggest mistake. He swerved back in front of me, and then, with a semi in front of him and a semi beside him, he flipped them both off.

You know, those guys have radios…..

Suddenly, from behind me a semi appeared. I got into the left lane, anticipating passing the guy Mr. Grill had tried to pass. But that truck driver had other plans. He stayed on Mr. Grill’s left flank, speed for speed. The truck driver ahead slowed down. Like a supporting ballet dancer in tight choreography, the truck behind me got up on the bumper of Grill Guy’s trailer. Mr. Grill was now completely boxed in by three trucks—sustaining an even and prolonged 60-per-hour.

It was like watching orcas hunt.

The road added a left lane after about two miles—something I suspect the truckers knew. They kept their finger-flipping-friend hemmed in while the rest of us passed their box trap.

I risked a peek at the driver boxing their quarry from the left as I passed. He was grinning.