The Angry Bridge Troll has a Megaphone

Beware, Palm Beach Gardens residents: the troll that inhabits the little box on the PGA bridge and pulls the lever that makes you late for everything has been equipped with a loudspeaker. And he isn't shy about using it.

A few minutes ago, I went for a jog up PGA. I adjusted my pace while approaching the bridge so that I would get there about the time that it closed. I guess I was naive to think that the gate was put there mainly to keep the elderly from flying off the bridge into the inter-coastal, because when I ducked under it and ran toward the bridge, the speaker crackled on and the man in the box commanded me to get behind the gate. I almost expected turrets to start firing rounds at me by the tone of his voice. I took off my headphones, made an about-face, and started walking back to the gate, irritated that my heart rate was slowing.

Some tan men on a boat below the bridge yelled up to me "Get behind the gate." I wasn't sure whether they were mocking the bridge troll or reminding me, but I just threw my hands up in the air, as if to say "What's the big deal?"

I was about ten feet shy of the gate by now, and I turned around to look. The bridge was closed. I looked up to the control tower, and then back to the gate to see if it was on it's way up.

Suddenly, the speaker lashed out at me: "GET BEHIND THE GATE NOW!" It was the bridge troll, attempting to assert the small amount of power he has in this universe by keeping the gates closed until I fully complied with his orders. Startled, I continued on and ducked under the gate. Once on the other side, I gave the control tower a "thumbs up" and the gates started to open.

I finished my jog in peace, and now I know better than to use my pedestrian powers to try to get a head start on the bridge traffic.