Having just signed my Last Will and Testament and other documents that would allow Susan to pull the plug on me under certain circumstances, I leapt in the car and headed toward the Rescue Squad. I was bound for the Squad's monthly membership meeting, a gathering that usually gives one's adrenal gland a nice two-hour rest. But this would be no mere discussion of new fire equipment purchases and dispatching protocols. This was the culmination of our "Fall Drive" fundraising effort, in which each member was required to raise a quota as part of our shared responsibility to keep the Squad running. At this meeting, the names of members who hadn't fulfilled their quota would be read, and those members would be kicked out. I was curious to see if the process would really be as Draconian as I'd been led to believe.

The trip to the Squad seemed unusually harrowing, as if the universe was eager to test out my new will. The long, winding stretch of Reno Road that I take was repaved about two months ago, and the task of painting new lines on the pavement has apparently fallen through the cracks. There are no lane indications and no yellow center line, just a twisting ribbon that looks like something from the days when carriages plied the DC streets. I generally believe that the location of oncoming traffic is not one of those things that should be left up to individual interpretation. It works on Reno Road, but provides some hair-raising moments just about every time I drive it.

Reno Road is really an exercise in controlled anarchy. A neophyte might find it terrifying, but most of the drivers seem to know the route, and they drive as if the former lanes were still visible. As in any decentralized power structure, there are always individuals who are comfortable putting themselves and others at risk in order to get ahead. They typically roar around in the ambiguous and unsafe middle of the road, trying to jump a few cars forward in line.

I debate the proper response: do I allow them to get away with it and thus subtly encourage the flouting of rules that make organized systems possible? Or do I refuse to allow them back in line, thus enforcing the necessary order but further endangering them, me, and others? These are the profound social questions I confront every time I drive to the rescue squad.

At the meeting, a few members were indeed kicked out for failure to make their quota. None were present.

I had been so intimidated by the prospect of being booted out that I had fundraised like a little maniac several weeks ago, and roared past my quota with room to spare. In fact, I busted my chops with such ado that I ended up on the Top 10 list of fundraisers. I felt some embarrassment at this honor. Being a good team player is a new thing for me, and having my name read out to the assembly made me feel like a grind.

I left the meeting in a knot of gloom. I disliked seeing my rescue squad excise its own members in this way. I knew we all shared the responsibility to keep the squad functioning, and that allowing people to subvert this in little ways could erode everyone's sense of duty in the long run. Still, it wasn't fun to see a system enforcing the rules that make its existence possible.

But all that's nothing. What I really felt was anger. I hadn't been quite so angry in a long time, and I couldn't even begin to explain why. It didn't have anything to do with an intellectual appreciation of the mechanics of justice. It wasn't about people getting kicked out.

What a strange and wondrous feeling, to be full of rage at an invisible and mysterious enemy as you glide down an unlined dark road with no real rules. It felt like slack muscles, atrophied through an unusually lengthy period of recent happiness, were stretching and tensing in preparation for motion.