What If You "What If" Too Much

As you well know, I'm a pod, and one of the main podly pasttimes is thinking too much. I think all the time. Which on the surface seems like a good thing. Then again, you don't necessarily know what I'm thinking about.

I was driving home from B'burg late Wednesday night on Rt 460. On the 65-mile stretch of it they should name the "Betty Bet Bet Inspirational Highway," because surely I drive that piece of road more than any human who owns a car. Or doesn't. I was taking things slow and easy. See, there was a light, partially snow/rain mix falling, and everything I'd heard all day was calling for the dreaded "Black Ice." I really hate that term "Black Ice." Sounds like it should be a Vin Diesel thriller - "Black Ice - He'll Be There When You Least Expect! [Rated R]"

Anyway, you know how you just have an icky feeling? Normally weather forecasts don't keep me home, I mean, if I have to be somewhere I have to be there, and I'll generally go if the podmobile's amenable, even if I do worry on the way. Well, for some reason, these icy indications, these frosty foretellings just got under my skin, and I was feeling hinky even on the way to B'burg, when it was not only dry, but barely even dark outside. So you can imagine when I departed Mr M's, full of coffee, frozen rain whapping on the pavement, wind blowing small animals around, on a cold moonless night.

This was going to be a thinking kind of trip home.

I began the trip thinking about just a couple of things. 1) The wind, which really was ferocious, and 2) keeping my speed down, not only for any upcoming weather conditions, but also because I'm working so hard at removing speeding from my bag of tricks. The coffee hadn't really kicked in yet, and I decided to light up a clove cigarette and take a long drag off it, for that headrush it gives. By that time I was rounding the top of Mountain One, of the two you have to cross immediately out of town. Sunday before last, on my way home I saw no fewer than three cars wrecked or turned sideways at the tops of these mountains.

And that got me to thinking about my little pas de deux on the off-ramp of 460 that same Sunday night. And that started the whole damn thing.

I know man who used a term to me once that I liked. It's "God's Choreography." Now, I'm not (as I was just saying in a conversation at Band) "church people." I don't even know what I believe, to be honest. I don't even know that I do. I think I more hope. I hope in God. But anyway, I just liked the idea of what this man said.

He was a passenger in a car when he suffered a heart attack. Turns out the car was coming upon a red light, that had a left turn lane. The driver got in it and started flashing lights and waving for help. Just so happened the first car along contained a nurse. The intersection across from the light had a shopping plaza, where a police car was in the parking lot. They alerted an ambulance from a hospital that happened to be less than a half-mile away.

In other words, everything was exactly where it needed to be to keep this man alive. God's Choreography.

It wasn't that I wasn't paying attention Sunday before last. I was - I just thought the off-ramp was snow-covered instead of completely iced over. I was minding my own business, till I saw that car in front of me start its spin, then I knew to watch out. And though I did spin, I was prepared and had time to actually think about those things they taught me in Drivers Ed lo those many years ago. And neither myself nor my car was damaged. And while in my brain I know that being prepared had nothing to do with it, and sheer dumb luck in where I was sliding had everything to do with it, still, I had to think. What if I hadn't seen that car in front of me start to spin?

And as we all know, with me at least, one "what if" and a jumbo cup of coffee can lead to a sleepless night.

It took me back to another incident, yet again on the Betty Bet Bet Inspirational Highway, about 15 years ago. My cousin Jacob and I were traveling to B'burg, I was driving, and as we topped the hill at P'broke, an accident had just happened. Turns out a young woman was walking across the highway, and a car hit her, killing her instantly. I've thought about that many times since. What if we'd left for B'burg 45 seconds earlier? What if I'd gone 3 mph faster than I did? That could have been me. What would that have done to my life? And what if all those things had happened, and it was me, but I missed her? She'd be alive now.

One cold night last year I was zipping back from Band. Coming home there's a small stretch of, yep, you guessed it, the Betty Bet Bet Inspirational Highway, that's as curvy and banked as a toy race car set. I generally love that stretch of road, because, well, it's fun to hit the gas and hug the curves.

I was zipping along without a care when I suddenly saw a truck smashed into the rocky bank on the right side. The police were there helping. "Shit," I thought, and immediately slowed way down. Once I did, blammo. I hit a patch of ice and started a slide, not towards the rocky bank side, but towards the 3-story death drop side. I did the right thing, turned my wheels in the direction I was sliding, a scary proposition since it was towards the death drop, and I got my footing back. I slid again towards the other side, and got my footing again. About 1/4 mile down the road, another car had wrecked.

What if I hadn't seen that first wreck? The flashing police lights? What if I hadn't slowed to a crawl? Would I now be fish food at the bottom of the New River, where is surely where I'd have ended up after dropping off the mountain, bouncing off the east-bound lane, and rolling several times?

And while we're at it, what about that time night-driving to Atlanta when the trailer detached from its car and came hurtling towards me, and I was just really quick and swerved to avoid it. What if I'd been looking over talking to my traveling companion? What if I'd have been fiddling with the radio?

And geez, what about the time when I was a little girl and our car caught on fire in the driveway? And Dad sent us all, Mom, sis, and me, running up the road in our sock feet while he opened the car door and tried to put out the fire? What if those flames had consumed him? How would my life have changed?

And for that matter, what if I'd decided to go away to Purdue University, where I'd been invited and accepted, instead of staying local? Would I now have a big cushy job, working in some big city? Everything that my life has been from age 18 on would have been totally different. All my friends would be different. I might not even have discovered Elvis Costello! (And yes, I actually think about things like this.)

I'd started planning to have my surgery about 2 years before I actually did. What if I'd done that - not chickened out? What if I'd chosen to go to Richmond, where I was researching, instead of staying local in R'noke, like I did? Would there have been complications, would I have survived? Would I have been as successful, or as happy?

And since I had another good 12 miles to home, what about this one? Mr M and I knew each other online for several years before we ever met. And for reasons not to be discussed here, when he told me he was moving from New Jersey to B'burg, I was right pissed off. I didn't want him living that close to me, and I didn't want to meet him. In fact, he'd lived in B'burg for at least a month before I relented. And Good Lord.

I think about the fast friends we became and wonder - what if I'd never plucked up the courage to meet this Apex of Assholishness face to face?

Well, I can tell you a couple of things for sure. I wouldn't own the Poderosa. He was the number one factor in my decision to just say "what the hell" and make the purchase. Before, I was so afraid of everything that could go wrong. I was afraid to leap.

I'd still be a third-rate clarinet player, instead of a second-rate one. I'd also probably be the same kind of a doormat I was before we met, not that I'm not one to a certain extent now, it's just that before, the doormat I was said "Welcome." "Yes, you're welcome to walk all over me, I don't mind." I wouldn't know how to fight with people, I wouldn't have come to appreciate the orgasmic joys of a good cup of coffee, and I would have missed out on a hell of a lot of laughing. In short, I'd have spent 4 years of not knowing how great it is to have a best friend.

If, if, if. My friend Sandra says "if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its ass." (btw, the 3 of us now use our "formal," given names in the office instead of our shortened 3-letter names, for some reason)

Anyway, I finally made it back home to the Comfy Chair, and the only black ice I encountered was in my own driveway, as I was getting out of the podmobile. But I was still mighty hepped up, and I sat for awhile, watching TV and listening to my heart beat. God's Choreography? Good driving skills? Dumb luck? The way the stars align?

Who knows, and it doesn't really matter anyway. For all of the what iffing I constantly do, I think things have gone OK so far.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Obituary alert again. Our great friend Q, mentioned in my "kitty" blog of a couple of weeks ago, brought us another one. This one was right in our B'field paper last week, I can't believe one of us in the office didn't see it. This came from the obit of a woman in the area who passed. I quote ver batim: "She loved 'Jeopardy,' teapots, jewelry, the color purple, shopping, tennis, chocolate covered cherries, eating out, and Santa Claus. She hated raisins, biscuits, and prejudice."
* I love that. Sounds like a Lina Wertmuller movie: "Raisins, Biscuits, and Prejudice."
* And who could hate biscuits? Raisins, I understand. I hate raisins. Raisins are selfish bastards.