Friday, December 08, 2006

A near miss

Well, I think that I probably came the closest I will hopefully ever come to winning a Darwin Award this morning… by nearly removing myself from the gene pool in a spectacularly stupid manner.

It was a fairly normal (if chilly) morning here in the big easy, and overnight the temperature had dipped down near the twenties. Of course, this meant little to me as I hopped into my car to head to work, other than that I grabbed my sweater before leaving the house. Or so I thought.

While passing over the bridge, I noticed that my windshield was kinda dusty, and instinctively pressed the washer button to clear it. Predictably, wipers started, and the washer fluid sprayed over the windshield…

And froze solid on contact.

I was rendered totally blind to the cars in front of me in less time than it takes to tell, and still moving at 60 miles an hour. My windshield wipers made no headway against the super thin sudden frost that my stupidity had rendered upon me. I frantically pushed the heater lever over to defrost, but nothing happened. Terrified, I found the presence of mind to pull over, and waited there on the side of the road for almost a half hour for the defroster to finally melt the mess that sat there mocking me after nearly getting me killed.

I realized a few things from this experience.

1) My worst fears are true… Without my ex-wife around, I have indeed become the ‘stupid one’ of my clique of friends. The ‘Joey’ of our little group, as it were.
2) After living in the deep south for 13 years, I no longer think it important to carry an ice scraper or deicer in my car, despite the fact that I am known for my long drives into northern climates.
3) All this time, the oil change place I go to has been adding water to my windshield washer bottle instead of washer fluid.

I’m still working on which of these makes me more upset.

4 comments:

Melinda said...

Wait. Does that make me Ross or Chandler? Or Phoebe?

Okay, Joey II, since you're now the "stupid" one (although I doubt you've earned that title considering...), you HAVE to head over to stupid.com.

Why?
1.) Darth Tater key chain
2.) Gollum key chain
3.) The chicken chucker-- a toy gun that catapults tiny rubber chickens
4.) The Nun Chuck--similar toy only it catapults tiny nuns
5.) Some kind of Star Trek musical thingy
6.) UNCUT Dungeons & Dragons figures

I hate that it's Christmas time, so I'm stuck buying presents for all the nieces and nephews, my future step-kids, the future ball-and-chain, Ace, Mom, Grandma, etc.
I so want to go hog wild with the odd merchandise purchasing.

Stacey said...

I've done that.

Furthermore, I've done that thinking that it'd clear up the ice already on the windshield. I figured the engine heat would heat up the wiper fluid, thus melting ice. Thankfully, I was only a block from my house and could pull over with little calamity to wait for the 400 layers of ice to clear up, because we all (well, we four) know how brilliantly the Jeep's defroster works.

Right there with ya, dude.

And I'm betting I'm... Monica? Family-minded obsessive-compulsive?

Melinda, you're definitely a Ross. You're even almost married to a lesbian. :D

Melinda said...

Okay, I'm cool with being the Ross. I even think paleontology is kinda cool. Hey, who wouldn't want to dig up a dinosaur or a trilobite or some previously unknown species of cave lesbian? Besides, paleontologists do it in the field! Yeah, baby!

Anonymous said...

Rob, you will never be the stupid one. If you were the stupid one, I wouldn't plot how to take over the world with you. Speaking of, behold my gingerbread minions.

I made this one for you.