Bet Has Good Karma Today

OK, today's been one of the more interesting ones I've lived through lately.

Work sucked, but there's nothing I can do about that. Boss is on vacation, and everything seems to be falling right into my lap. Mostly it's unhappy people. I had no fewer than four unhappy people in my lap today. It was getting crowded in there, and I wasn't really in the mood to help any of them, but I did.

Then I had to leave right from work to make it to R'ford in time for a Community Band concert. I took the alternate route there because time was of the essence. The alternate route would be to bypass the Betty Bet Bet Inspirational Highway altogether, and travel Interstates 77 and 81 respectively. Higher speed limits, straighter roads, A-OK, and I made it there just in time to get set up and start playing.

The concert went well, no problems there, oh, I tell a lie. My short dixieland solo in that one piece took a turn for the worse when I squeaked on the second note, missed the smear, and was just barely hanging on for the rest. It wasn't a disaster, it just wouldn't have made Larry Combs jealous. (Mr M is the only person out there who will get that joke.)

Then, for some reason I decided to go home the same way I came. I guess the reasoning was, "Hell, I got here so fast via this route, I'll get home fast, too." And so onto I-81 I merged.

I was zipping along, at the 65-mph speed limit of course, I'm still being a very good girl in that area, and I was listening to my 80s mix cassette. "Our House" by Madness was fading out, and I was getting ready for the opening strains of "Can't Get There From Here" by REM.

Little did I know how appropriate that all would be.

I was in that driving zone we all get into from time to time, so I can't tell you exactly why I did it, but all of a sudden I seemed to be holding up my steering wheel. And when I say "holding up," I mean, the top of my wheel seemed to be hinged in its rightful place, but the bottom of the wheel, well, I was basically holding it over my head.

"Holy crap. That can't be right," I began to think, and just as I did I came to the sad realization that not only did I have no steering wheel to speak of, but that I had no steering as well.

I was going 65 miles per hour in my car and I had no fucking steering.

I hit the brakes, as one would in these situations, and as I slowed down I started to drift left. And left. And left. And there I was - knowing full well I had no steering - steering what was left of my steering wheel to the right, for nothing. I even went on that "steer in the direction you're sliding in when you're on ice" theory, and I turned my wheel to the left. Then I made a 360 with my wheel. And at that point, I knew I was pretty much doomed to death.

I just kept braking the car hoping for the best. And I got the best, well, of sorts, anyway. My car finally stopped about 3/4 inch from the left lane guardrail. I hadn't wrecked.

However, seeing as how there was no left hand roadside to speak of, that meant that a good half of the podmobile was out in the left-hand lane of I-81. And even more however, seeing as how I was now 3/4 inch away from the guardrail, I couldn't get out of my fucking car!

It was, as we say here in Betland, a bit of a worrying time.

So there I was, stuck in my car, with cars and trucks and tractor trailers zipping past me at the speed of light, only seeing me there in time to swerve and miss me by about an inch.

I was calmer than I would ever have imagined myself being in this situation. "Jesus, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die right here. Please don't hit me. Thank you! I'm gonna die," was something of how my conversation was going, but I was still quite calm about it all.

I saw a wrecker miss me by about an inch, then hit into reverse and back up to my car. A guy got out - he had to actually jump over the guardrail and back over it to get to my car - and he asked me what was wrong. I showed him my wheel.

"Good God, Miss. I've never seen anything like that in my life!" Then he added, "You gotta get out of that car right now!"

And so like a fool, I tried again to squeeze out of my door (this was about the 3d time), and I knew there was no way. So I climbed over the console into the passenger's seat, prayed no one would please hit me now since I was closer to the traffic, waited for a small clearing, and popped out of the car.

Now, in what I know was a stunning move of stupidity, so don't even say it, once out of the car I went and - stood behind the car. I stood there, watching the guy and his helper trying to get my car on the bed of their wrecker, watched them take their feet and push their entire body weights against the wheels trying to get them to turn, and watched the traffic keep missing us all by inches. And stood there thinking, "You know, someone's going to hit my car and guess what. They'll hit me, too." But calmly.

Finally the two guys got the car onto the wrecker's bed, and I climbed in. They asked me where I lived and where I was going and all that, and to make a very long story very short, they didn't drop me off at some lonely station to find my way home, they brought me home.

And may I just say that two nicer Good Ol' Boys from the wilds of southwestern Virginia you couldn't find. They were friendly, they were polite, they even asked if they could smoke with me in the truck. They were also completely gob-smacked at what had happened to me. "No, ma'am, you don't understand. People's steering wheels don't just come off. Your steering column might break, but your wheel doing that, that's something wrong."

They were also amazed that nothing happened to me. Not as amazed as I am, I kept saying.

So we rode to B'field, which was a good hour or so, and they told me stories of their jobs (they do some car repoing on the side, and though I was trying to get some juicy gunshot stories out of them they said that rarely happens). They got me all the way back to the Poderosa and unloaded the now-dead podmobile into my driveway. They had to disconnect the battery since the lights wouldn't go off on the car. Now that means my doors won't lock, so I have to still go unearth anything of value that's in there.

And make no mistake, folks. The podmobile is, at this present time, dead. It looks sad and tired. As do I as well, I'm sure.

So, I paid Tim and his friend for the tow, and told them they were my new best friends, and they set off back from whence they came. And I'm stuck here wondering what's next for the trusty stalwart podmobile. Is it over? Can it be fixed? If it can be fixed, can I ever hit 65mph and turn the wheel again and not have a panic attack?

And I got to thinking about my good Karma. Maybe it was being nice to all those people I didn't want to be nice to today, I don't know. Maybe it was having all that work piled upon me that I didn't want nor deserve. You know, had I actually decided to take the Betty Bet Bet Inspirational Highway home, I'd be dead now, and you'd never have to read my blog again. That road's way too curvy and hilly for me to have survived losing my steering.

And I still can't believe I didn't wreck. Or get hit. In the car or out of it.

And I still love Tim and his friend for helping me.

And I'm feeling pretty damn lucky right now.

(Oh, and when I told Mr M about the steering wheel, his response was, "I've never known that to ever happen before, except in a WC Fields movie." That made me giggle. I needed a giggle.)

Betland's Olympic Update:
* And even with all that we still have acrowinners to crown. But it'll be short and sweet. So what's up with that prat Tom Cruise?
Honorable Mention goes to Flipsycab with "Jumping, telling everything, shouting - pathetic."
Runner-Up goes to DeepFatFriar with "Jesus, Tom! Enough Scientology poppycock."
And winner goes to LilyG with "Just tell everyone. Shameless poofter."
Thanks to all who played!
* I didn't die tonight.