Monday, April 17, 2006

Scary

I’ve seen some freaky ass shit on the highways around town, from burning cars to 480˚ spinouts to my (not a cop) dad directing traffic on an icy on-ramp. But I’m just now coming down from the adrenaline high of the supreme weirdness I saw on my way to drop Kirk off at my sister’s house this morning. I was driving west on Highway 7, between Louisiana and Texas. There’s that slight hill before you get to the Texas light. I was almost at the crest of the hill when suddenly, a red SUV started coming over the 5 foot tall concrete barrier separating oncoming traffic! What the fuck?!? I swerved, and thankfully there was no one in the right lane or I would have hit someone. I was just tripping out. How do you drive up a vertical barrier? My brain just can’t wrap around the Newtonian physics of such a sight. Waiting to turn left at the next light, I could see traffic piling up in my rear-view. I heard the sirens on the way as I pulled Kirk out of the car in my sister’s parking lot.

I thought maybe the SUV got rear-ended in order to have enough force to get up the barrier. My sister’s theory is that the SUV could have ridden on top of a smaller vehicle for that lift. When I called Mr. b he figured that the small amount of slanted footing at the base of the barrier would be enough for a vehicle to ride up to the top. I’m sure I’ll never really know. Normally you can only see the tops of cars on the other side of it. Not their front wheels coming at you. But if there hadn’t been the wall? I would have been hit front-on. At high speeds.

So I just sat at my sister’s house for 20 minutes or so before taking an alternate route to work. I needed to hug and kiss Kirk. Cuddle him. Calm myself down from the adrenaline shakes. I felt bad because I was threatening to change his name to Cranky Mr. Crabby Pants this morning. I love him so much.

2 comments:

Anne C. said...

Glad you and mon capitan are ok, bel! That would have given me the shakes too. Brrrr!

LA said...

Jeeze that sounds scary! Good job on the quick thinking and fast driving reaction!