Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Hey, at least I used my blinker

So, today I was out and about, hitting the grocery store and the bookstore to pick up the new Wendy Johnson book, and running a bunch of other errands. I was coming home (headed north on 35W, a couple of miles south of the river, for those of you MN people that care), singing along with Rihanna (please don’t stop the music, DJ, let it play). I was in the right lane following one of those massive SUVs that you can’t see over, under or around, but I left plenty of following room and was just enjoying the breeze through my window.

Suddenly the massive SUV nailed its brakes (we’re talking squealing tires and fishtailing) and skidded into the middle lane. And the moment that thing was out of my line of sight, I understood why. Some jackass had gotten on the interstate going the WRONG DIRECTION. I was just a few feet from the exit ramp, which the moron had just finished accelerating up, apparently thinking it was the entrance ramp. It was a massive Ford pickup (much like the one the mister drives) towing a Bobcat on a trailer. And he was coming at me.

I stomped on my brake pedal and yanked my car hard to the left, pulling into the next lane. I would like to point out that I used my blinker, though I might have hit it when I was already most of the way into the middle lane. I didn’t hear any horn honking or squealing tires (other than my own and, perhaps, some from the jackass in the truck), so I’m assuming I didn’t cut anyone off or cause any sort of accident.

I called 911 and the rest of my ride home passed without further incident, except for my shaking hands and the nausea roiling in my gut.

I'm looking at this as maybe the end of my string of bad luck. Sure, it was almost a horrific accident, but only almost. And if I had been driving that big Monte Carlo, I would have had a much harder time hitting the brakes and maneuvering it as well as I did the little purple car and it might not have ended as well as it did.

4 comments:

MOLLY said...

Holy buckets - I'm just glad you're okay. What a terrifying situation!

Janet said...

Holy crap. I'm sorry to hear that you had a close call, but glad that it wasn't anything worse!

NGS said...

Holy moly! (Thought I'd keep in theme.) That's really scary and I'm already kind of scared of 35W. I'm glad you're all right!!

MOLLY said...

Holy bejeezus!