What happens when you mistake the map for the territory?

Some British road-line painters found out the hard way. (Look at the picture in a different version of this story and decide if you believe they painted the lines that way on purpose, all the while pondering the postmodern ambiguity of it all.)

Mason & Dixon, p. 141:

Occasionally Insanty roll'd a sly Eye-ball into the picture. Treatises on "parageography" arriv'd, with alternative Maps of the world superimpos'd upon the more familiar ones.