Sunday afternoon. Driving down Route 10 West. A car driving east up that very road nearly slams me. Head on. He was fleeing the police, who followed a not-very-safe distance behind.
I didn't know what almost hit me. But in the seconds after the near miss, I realized how lucky I was.
Calling this a near-death experience would be overdramatic. An exaggeration. A desperate grab for sympathy. OK, a flat out lie. The Camry's safety record is widely documented. And the fugitive wasn't driving with reckless abandon. More like scared shitless abandon, which equates to approximately a 20mph difference. In that difference, even a subpar hand-eye coordinator like myself could swerve into the shoulder and live to tell about it.
So, more accurately, it was a near-airbag deployment. What I avoided was a big pain-in-the-ass.
Regardless of how close to death I really wandered, it was one of those live-life-to-the-fullest moments. Things were going to be different.
Suffice it to say, those different things never got done.
Speed ahead to Wednesday, three full days after the incident. I'm writing this while watching Giant Achievers: The Story of the 1989 New York Giants, which TiVo'd earlier this week. And I'm eating the finest of French-American cuisine, Pepperidge Farm Bordeaux cookies.
Unlike the cathartic ending to my defensive driving adventure, the 1989 Giants season ended in disaster. Jim Everett hit Willie "Flipper" Anderson with a (playoff) game-winning touchdown. In overtime. Anderson famously never broke stride, heading right into the locker room. A hit and run.
I admit I may have missed an opportunity to grab life by the horns. But watching the Giants fall to the '89 Rams was like watching a car wreck. Makes me realize how lucky I was.
Here's a ticket for the Commuting Suicide archives. And if you're the obscure t-shirt type, you don't get more obscure than the crap in our store.
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