Slippery Sunday

Is it a sign of age when you nearly roll your car off an on-ramp and all you do is sit there long enough to say, "oh, glad I didn't" before turning your car around and driving off again?

Yesterday was a glorious 47 degree March day. This morning was an equally messy raining snowing mess.

I drove the boyfriend to the airport at 9 this morning and as I made the turn to get back onto the main highway on the on ramp at only 10-15 mph my car slid into a gracefull 180 and then pulled out into a beautiful side skid until the passenger side tires went off the pavement onto the grass. This was an on ramp off an overpass. that means the "down" was a steep roll to the highway below. A mere 6 to 10 inches longer skid and I would have rolled my way down.

So did I scream? Nope. Did i hit the break? NEVER! Did I close my eyes and pray? Nada.

I let the wheel spin slowly in my hand, took my foot off the pedals, slipped the shifter into 2nd while I was spinning and as the skid ensued I reached over to make sure I had my purse in hand so when I was hanging upside down in a few short seconds I would be able to reach my cell phone. Crazy, uh?

When I realized I had stopped, I peered out and over the passenger window to look down the embankment, kinda of sighed "uhm" and said to myself, "you better turn your car around, you are sitting the wrong way on the ramp". I pressed the gas lightly to see if I would move, it did so I carefully manipulated the remainder of the 360 I needed with my hazards on and continued on down the ramp to the highway.

This causes me to ponder a bit...the first time I ended up in the ditch I was 14, I had had my driver's license for about 6 months, my car for about 4 and I came around a gravel curve too fast, fishtailed, braked way hard, fouoght the skid and stopped in the opposite ditch. No car damage, not even a steep ditch, just needed to put my foot back on the gas and head home. NOPE!!! I flew out of the car, sprinted the 1/2 mile to the neighbor crying my eyes out because Mom was going to kill me. No one was one so I started hyperventilating my way back to the car where another neighbor had already stopped and was backing my car out for me. I'm now almost 3o and that neighbor has never mentioned a word about my panic mode that morning and the first words out of my mom's mouth were "is the car okay".

Guess I learned a lot in the last 14 years. And I sweat only much bigger stuff now. I better go, I have to go back to the church for the second time today in this wet nasty mess. Pray for me :)