Due to the icy road conditions today that are forcing me to stay at home with my now educationally-deprived child, I will share with you the tale of one of the greatest driving feats ever performed. It is great not only because of the dexterity, skill, and quick thinking that it took to perform it, but also because I lived to be able to share it with you today. I may have to take frequent breaks while writing just to compose myself, but you would never know that as reading really has no pauses (unless they’re self-imposed by the reader having to use the bathroom, grab a quick smoke, or actually doing some work while at the office). To help you there, I will let you know when I am taking a moment to compose myself so that you may share in my emotions. Yes, my blogs are now becoming interactive.
We begin our story with a little bit of background. Before I was driving the luxurious 1993 Buick Lesabre that I currently grace the roads of the bi-state area with, I was the proud owner of a blue 1999 Saturn. This was my first (and so far only) new car that I owned and even though it wasn’t as glorious as some automobiles out there, I loved it and it served me well for many years. I was also living at the time in a POS house on 11th street in beautiful Bellevegas with my then girlfriend Carol (we slept in separate bedrooms, of course *wink-wink*) and our good friend Dan. The house was ugly and reeked of lies, but it was cheap and we had a lot of fun in it. Additionally, I had just started working at the airport in Cahokia, IL and was quickly discovering that I hated it there. Really, really hated it there.
Anyway, I had gotten in the habit those days of making a stop at QT on the way to work to pick up a large cup of QT French Vanilla Cappuccino and whatever various sundries that I wanted on that particular morning. It was just a few blocks down from the house and offered a quick entrance to Route 15 which would take me a majority of the way to work. It was a trip I had made numerous times and could probably have made with my eyes closed had I ever tried.
On this particular morning, however, there was a small difference. Actually, it was a big difference. A big, icy difference. Overnight, we had been the not so grateful recipients of some snow and a lot of ice. Luckily, the ice came first and the snow piled on top of it, but ice is ice and regardless of how much snow is packed on top, it’s still slippery underneath. Now, I’ve never had a problem driving in snow or ice before (well, except for the time that my car did a complete 360 while driving at about 40 mph on Highway 255 with another car directly in front of me, but that’s a whole different type of story altogether) and I really didn’t expect to have any problems that day. I was neither fearful of the drive nor was I overly cautious when it came to navigating the road or snow. This was just going to be an ordinary drive to work.
As I made my way to QT, I noticed that even though there were very obvious rough patches here and there, the roads were basically fine for traveling purposes. There were some snow spots on the streets but they were glaring white due to the newness of it and also because of the bright sunshine that day. As long as I could avoid those spots, this drive would be a piece of cake. I made it to QT, poured myself a cup of ambition, and made my way back out to my car to continue the trek to the job from hell.
I pulled out of QT and made my way towards RT 15 with no problems whatsoever. I wouldn’t say that I was overly cocky about my driving skills on such a day, but I was definitely confident that I would have no problems at all. I did drive slightly slower due to my need to avoid snow patches that might be harboring ice underneath, but for the most part I maintained a decent pace and would be arriving at work only slightly tardy. I had this driving in the snow and ice thing licked.
Have you ever heard of black ice?
I had heard of the existence of black ice on many occasions but had never really experienced it before. I knew what regular ice was as I had slipped and fallen on it many times in my life, but I had never seen black ice before and only knew it as a myth. Luckily for me and my forever expanding list of life experiences, I was soon introduced to black ice and the horrible effects that it can have on a 4 door sedan travelling at slightly faster than safe speeds on an apparently safe road.
The second I hit the black ice (which sounds much different when you say it than when you read it, plus I would never hit a group of black guys because frankly, I don’t hit that hard and unless they’ve provoked me I would have no reason to do so) my car began to move in a direction that I was not so comfortable with. I’ve slid on snow and ice before and have even done some pretty magical things behind the wheel to correct myself when that occurred, but this was different. This wasn’t just a slight shimmy, this was a full on ass-end-of-the-car-being-swung-on-a-swivel slide.
I knew from all of my studying during driver’s education that slamming on the brakes was the worst thing to do, so instead I lightly tapped them and attempted to correct my steering in the opposite direction of which I was sliding. Actually, I may have turned the steering wheel into the turn to fix it, but I’m not sure. Off the top of my head I couldn’t tell you what to do, but in the heat of battle I’ve always done it the right way and have no car accidents on my record to prove it…so far.
Anyway, regardless of what I did with the steering wheel or how lightly I tapped my brakes, I could not stop the car from spinning around. It was slow spin, but a spin nonetheless and before I knew it, my car had done a complete 180 degree turn and I was…
(composure moment)
now driving backwards at a reduced rate of about 25 mph on a major road full of traffic. I was officially scared shitless at this point but didn’t scream or panic. The reason that I was able to restrain myself from giving the Route 13 scream (reference previous blogs) was that I was now realizing another situation that had elevated my fear to an entirely different level – we’ll call it Fear II.
Fear II is slightly worse than Fear I because Fear I lets you know that you’re somehow screwed. Fear II lets you know that in addition to the pain or anguish that you are more than likely experience from Fear I, you are now only going to have it compounded due to a secondary factor. The secondary factor in my situation is that not only was I driving backwards at a fairly good rate of speed, but I was now face-to-face with the car that used to be behind me, and still kind of was, and he was going slightly faster than I was. I was about to be the victim of the first head-on rear-end collision in modern history.
(another composure moment. Just give me a second)
Luckily for me, my natural instincts and cat like reflexes were on full alert and I made a quick decision to turn my steering wheel slightly to navigate my backwards car to the shoulder of the road. Like I said before, I’d driven this road many times before and I knew that there was plenty of room on the shoulder of the road for both my car and my recently soiled pants (Fear II will often convince your bowels that they no longer need to operate in a socially acceptable manner). I looked at the driver in front/back of me and the look of terror on his face (He was only at Fear I) was indescribable. I did notice, however, that he was slowing down and, as a result, was getting farther and farther away from me so the fear of being hit by him was decreasing by the second. Additionally, my car was slowly moving backwards to the shoulder of the road so I began to relax little. I was going to make it out of this alive.
Do you know how in horror movies the girl is usually being chased by the axe murderer (Fear I) and as she runs through the house/forest/campsite she sees all of her mutilated friends and realizes that not only is she going to die, but she is going to die in the same horrific fashion as they did (Fear II) until she is somehow able to knock the killer down and make it to whatever abandoned automobile that is available to her and then once she is inside she relaxes a bit because she knows she’s going to escape safely until the moment when she realizes that either the keys aren’t in the ignition or that the car won’t start and the killer pops up at the window holding the murder weapon and a pissed off expression because she almost got away and then how they usually get a close up of the victims face expressing an entirely new kind of shock altogether? Well, that’s Fear III.
I quickly experienced Fear III as my killer and his murder weapon passed by my car as I veered onto the shoulder of the road. Like I said, I relaxed slightly and knew that I was going to make it out alive but somehow, in my case, a different killer arrived. This new potential killer popped up at my car window in the form of a steep embankment off the shoulder of the road that I, but neither my car nor inertia, very much wanted to avoid. Unfortunately for me, the laws of physics won and the stop that I was planning on making on the shoulder of the road didn’t quite happen the way I wanted it to.
Fear III is a funny thing. It can elicit a variety of reactions including, but not limited to, screaming, crying, drooling, loss of bodily functions, and most commonly, prayer to a higher being that you may either speak to on a daily basis or only in instances such as this. I, however, experienced a very different kind of Fear III. As if I was in the movie “Final Destination” I became convinced that my time had come. Even though I had escaped death by ice patch and head-on rear-end collision, I was destined to perish that morning and something was going to get me – and that something was going to be that hill. I didn’t scream, I didn’t cry, and I didn’t even pray to my higher power (Anthony Michael Hall for anyone who’s curious). I simply sat back, held on to the steering wheel, and waited stone-faced for the eventual flipping of the car and the sounds of bending steel and breaking bones.
But it never happened.
I don’t know how or why, but in the midst of my car sliding down that steep embankment, it just stopped. I wasn’t sliding at a great speed by any means, but the embankment should have allowed for me to keep sliding and flipping regardless of speed. Maybe it was because my car was light. Maybe it was because of my fantastic driving skills, instincts, and cat-like reflexes. Or maybe it was because the portrayer of such great characters as Farmer Ted, Brian Johnson, and Gary Wallace was watching over me that day. Whatever it was, I didn’t care. My car had stopped and I was alive. Alive and uninjured.
As I got out of the car to assess the damage, I stepped carefully out the door in order to avoid the car sliding again and me moving to the always fatal but never fully described since no one has ever lived through it - Fear IV. The car seemed pretty stable though and I began walking around it to see both the damage to my vehicle and what had caused it to stop. What I saw was absolutely amazing. Not only was there not a scratch or dent anywhere on my car that wasn’t already preexisting, but the thing that stopped my car was not even fathomable.
I like to think that it was the great AMH that stopped the car and saved my life that day as that is far more believable than what I actually witnessed. Out of the ground and placed firmly against the rear bumper of my car was a stick. I would like to call it a tree, but that would be an insult to trees everywhere. In fact I may have even insulted sticks. Sticking out of the ground was a branchless, leafless, barely even an inch in diameter twig that apparently stopped my automobile from an inevitable crash down a large embankment into a sea of trees with no give whatsoever. I desperately wanted to touch the twig to see how firmly planted in the ground it was, but I also did not want to test fate and upset the one thing that could be the difference between the price of a tow and the price of a new car. Eventually, I took the situation for what it was and decided to make my way up the hill and to the road to flag down some help (my cell phone battery was dead - of course). After a bit of time I made it home and decided that going to work just wasn’t going to be an option for me that day. The ice had won.
The story continues on from there with funny occurrences of me trying to climb up the hill while in my slick soled dress shoes, a kind woman picking me up and driving me the long way to my house taking a total of 30 minutes in the snow rather than taking a back road which would only have been three blocks total, and the 70+ year old man that the towing company sent to hook up my car even though he had had three heart attacks in the past year and couldn’t even lay on his back to attach the chain to my car for fear of not being able to get back up. All in all it was an adventurous morning as this all happened before 9:30.
The goal of this tale is three-fold. First, I wanted to let you know that the mythical black ice does indeed exist and should be feared. Second, I wanted to instruct you on the different stages of fear and how they affect people in their daily lives. And third, I wanted to let you know that due to my belief in the awesome powers of the great Anthony Michael Hall, the only things that I lost on that cold, icy, winter morning were a little bit of urine and a few drops of my delicious QT French Vanilla Cappuccino.
All hail Farmer Ted.
Thanks for reading
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