Was out riding the Fair Heights Bike Boulevard over the weekend, and came across the scene in Kafkaesque surrealism above, looking northbound at the southwest corner of San Mateo & Copper.

Can you spot the combination of pedestrian absurdities above?

No, we’re not talking about humans turning into cockroaches overnight or anything, but there’s some crazy shit going on in that photo.

For instance, would crossing north/straight here be considered jaywalking? If I were hit trying to walk north/straight here by a driver, let’s say, “stopping” for one nanosecond before turning right onto San Mateo, would I be at fault? Would the driver?

Would the resulting trial go something like this?

And what about that hole in the light pole? Does it lead to some parallel universe? Does that parallel universe have better pedestrian infrastructure?

Maybe, just maybe, the intersection of San Mateo and Copper is actually an absurdist Supreme Being, guiding the seemingly haphazard hand of fate by undermining the mathematical certainty of probability through bursts of the absurd.

Or maybe this intersection is simply a whimsical Dada installation piece, designed by a local devotee of Duchamp or Höch.

Or maybe not.

Having read too much science fiction, I did not cross north/straight at the intersection for fear of ripping the fabric of the universe and/or forever altering the space-time continuum. I also did not stick my finger in that hole.

I’m no dummy.

Nor did I call 311 to report the absurdity of this intersection, because one can only take just so much Kafka. No, I just took this photo, then continued east on Copper along the Fair Heights Bike Boulevard, eventually getting to the HAWK signal at Lomas & Alvarado, at which I again experienced that little theater of the absurd.

So much Kafka, so little Space-time. Have a delightfully absurd day, everyone.