It seemed like such a small, minor sin...

but as I turned right into the ferry line, against the expressed prohibition of such an act posted prominently at the intersection, I felt a terrific pang of guilt. There was nobody in the ferry line at that point, my only other choice was to turn left, go back up the hill to the official start of the ferry line, and enter it properly, and I was tired. My passenger seemed not to feel any compunctions and so I did it.

Naturally, immediately there appeared in my rear view mirror the sight of a string of cars way up the hill, properly coasting downhill in the ferry line AS I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DOING, and then it was almost too late to correct my path.

"Under these circumstances," I rationalized to myself, "it makes perfect sense to turn right into the ferry line. Everybody else would do it if they were in my seat. Nobody was coming down the hill when I did it. Surely it's okay." So I stayed in the ferry line, did not turn around and go properly back up the hill as I should have, even though the other car in our small caravan had done the right thing. And luckily, the driver of the car which had immediately appeared in the line, even as I was turning right, didn't seem to care, didn't report me to the toll booth guys, and I crept furtively into the ferry holding area, waiting for the heavy hand of fate to fall upon my shoulder, in the form of some official who would tell me to leave the area, go back up the hill and do things right. After all, my mother or father would have done that; why not the ferry guys?

But it didn't happen. Comeuppance didn't strike until I drove onto the ferry deck, cut too close to an outcropping of steel wall, and, with a terrible grinding sound, ripped off my passenger-side rear view mirror.

My friend who was the driver of the right-acting vehicle (and who got on the ferry BEFORE we did, no doubt because of his right behavior) came back to commiserate. But he couldn't help pointing out that though he had gone way back up the hill to the start of the line he had still been loaded onto the boat before I had.

So this morning, after duct-taping my dangling mirror back into place, I called the Toyota guys, asked them to order a passenger-side rear view mirror for a 2005 Corolla at a cost of a few hundred dollars, including labor, and I will be getting it fixed later this week. And I will never cut, logically or illogically, into the ferry line again. I promise.