IMPERFECT STORM

It was one of those flash snowstorms.  Schools were closed.  Banks were closed.  People still get sick.  Hurry and go to work.  Hurry and see all the new and old patients.  Hurry and get home before it gets too late.  Hurry and check the internet or play your video games and play with the kids.  Hurry and go to sleep before it’s too late.  Hurry and go to work. 

The freeway on the way to work was all ice and flurries.  It would have been nicer being in our jeep with 4-wheel drive but I took the Tiburon in case Amy needed to make a cold medicine run. 

My pager started vibrating just as I was getting onto a clear ramp between freeways.  I looked at the 5-digit hospital number but strangely, it didn’t seem the least bit familiar.  I picked up my cellphone but it was dead anyways.  

Then the car began to slide.  My brain went into slo-mo Matrix-time as I considered my options:  1) pump the brakes, 2) gently correct the drift, 3) just don’t slam on them.

Pumping the brakes had the effect of making both the car and my heart rate go faster. 

... You know that whole thing about seeing your life flash before your eyes?  It’s really just the important things that pop up in those fractionated seconds.  Things like, “Did we get that life insurance policy all settled?”  Or remembering my sweet Sun Su putting his hand on mine at the dinner table after I quietly placed it there for just that reason.

I gently turned the wheel in the opposite direction.  The car oversteered to that side sliding at a more severe angle.

... What am I not doing here?  I’ve played Project Gotham Racing AND Gran Turismo AND I was running on a treadmill at the time.  

... I remembered Amy picking out a birthday card that said, “… I still love you.”  Something about the word “still” made the printed words seem more sincere and deliberate and it sent me for a sweet loop.

I turned the wheel again.  The front end whipped back at an angle that made me almost perpendicular to the ramp tunnel with another bend coming up too quickly.  There is just no good solution for this situation. 

... And things were just getting better with Amy and me.  We even had sex the past two nights in a row.  It’s not about sex though, it’s the intimacy.  Neither of us say what’s in our hearts very well.  An introvert stays inside himself, and an extrovert sometimes just performs for her audience, not for herself.  With two kids it can be a slippery ramp right off the intimacy highway until you’re not even going in the same directions anymore.  You still love those extra little passengers though.

... Like Ooseung, our Petite Sophisticate, with her big dark eyes and upreaching arms asking me to pick her up and spin her around again, “APPAH AGAIN !”

I already know what’s going to happen when I turn the wheel for the last time.  The car violently spins to the other side and the wall is coming up so so fast.  The inside of the car is so quiet.  So calm.  Just waiting for the inertia and impact to have its way with me, and actually thinking,

“I really hope this doesn’t put a cramp in my neck.  I hate –“

C-C-R-RUUNNK!!

Snowy mist.  Crunching metal.  Silence. 

“Holy shit.”

I’m fine.  Not even whiplash.  I look at myself, out the windows, and step outside.  I see a towtruck driving up and then it zooms past me faster than I can say, “It’sOkay,I’mAlrigh—“

The snow and the angle of the last swerve made my car almost parallel to the wall.  The passenger side front corner is a little dented up but I’m not sure how much of that was from Amy backing up into my car a few months ago. 

I get back in, back up from the wall, and drive back up the ramp.

Man, I love this little Corean car. 

The only noticeable difference is that for every 10 miles per hour I go, that front wheel vibrates more and more.  But I make it to work and it’s business as usual.

Later that night,

“Did we get that life insurance thing done?”

“Yeah, just waiting for your labs to come back,” Amy says from the kitchen.

“I think I need to take my car in.  It’s vibrating now.  I, uh, kind of spun out on the highway.” 

“…”

I just smile and give Ooseung another spin, and think about better ways to weather the storms ahead.

The Hyundai dealership found a few weight bearings were missing from the wheel. 

PREVIOUS / MAIN / GALLERY / BIO / NOTIFY / FAQ / NEXT

EMAIL: scott_to_trot[at]msn[dot]com