Someone asked me a while back, “What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done?”
A series of my life’s vignettes zipped through my head like a bad movie on fast forward. Some of the highlights included getting my hand stuck in glass jar; crawling out a bathroom window, jumping a fence and landing on my feet right in front of a cop who had a lot of questions; or that time I was on a dinner date and while talking waved my hand through the candle flame setting my acrylic nails on fire which was dumb enough but then the dumbness was compounded when I dunked my nails into the closest glass of liquid on the table which happened to be his Scotch. Whoosh! The Scotch ignited and singed his eyebrows. He never did ask me out again.
But when I got to the end of the dumb-things movie reel in my head, it occurred to me, “Life’s not over” so, I replied: “Awfully confident of you to assume I’ve peaked. I still have a lot of potential.”
While I didn’t reach my full potential this week, I came close.
I want to be grateful for the rain. I really do, but, honestly, like the Wicked Witch of the West, “I’m melting, melting, melting.” Holy moldy, Batman, there’s been so much rain that there’s a fungus among us. I lichen this continuous precipitation to the 40 days and 40 nights and have pulled blue prints from the internet for an ark.
Everything is soggy and moldy including me. Really. Despite my best efforts to stay clean and dry I noticed that the grays on my head were turning green. Completely unacceptable. Not to mention, really creepy. So I was thankful that I had an appointment for a cut and color this week.
There was a high wind advisory for winds at 20 to 40 miles per hour with gusts of 50 to 60. The impacts listed included falling trees, flying debris and broom traffic congestion — bwahahahaha. There was also a flood watch in effect.
I had a decision to make. Should I drive from Oroville to Chico in the little Honda which was low to the ground so not subject to getting buffeted by winds but would leave me in a world of hurt should I encounter flooding or should I drive the big pickup which would get me through low-level flooding but could potentially turn into Dorothy’s house and leave me spinning toward Oz or some rancher’s pasture?
It was, as grandma used to say, “six of one, half a dozen of the other.” I opted for the big pickup but made sure I had my black rubber boots, a working flashlight, flares and an extra heavy raincoat in the back seat.
The drive to Chico was a breeze. Literally. There was barely any wind and no rain to speak of. Coming home was a whole other story.
During my appointment it had rained just enough to slick up streets and set the gutters to rushing like urban streams. When I left my appointment, sans the green roots, it was dark and the end of “rush hour.” The streets and highway were busy with folks anxious to get wherever they were going and seeming not to care very much that driving conditions were far less than optimal.
But it wasn’t until I got on the highway into the flat land of open fields and pastures that I realized how much the wind had come up. I should have called one of my Chico friends and asked for shelter but I really wanted to go home. So, I tucked my Bluetooth into my right ear, white-knuckled the steering wheel and used voice control to auto dial my best friend, Manhattan Jake, as the pickup rocked and tried to change lanes with its own volition.
She could hear the terror in my voice at “hello” and did just exactly what I was depending on her to do. She talked quietly and steadily about everything from the winter of ’84 when the rain and wind in the Bay Area never seemed to let up to the day’s political headlines.
Periodically I’d interrupt with weather and traffic updates: “I just veered onto the shoulder.” “I’m back in my lane.” “A tree just came down.” “Something just flew across the road between me and the car in front of me. There’s a distinct possibility it was a cow.” And so on until I was on Oro Quincy Highway a mile or two from home.
It was less windy there but had started to rain — hard. I was doing slightly below the speed limit when a pickup larger than mine came right up on my tail. I tapped my brakes signaling him to back the heck off but to no avail. He turned on his high beams, gunned his engine and pulled out to the left to pass me across a double yellow line on a curve.
I sorta screamed, took my foot off the accelerator and watched in dumbfounded horror as he fishtailed one way then the other then back again as a gust of wind caught us both. My pickup rocked hard but his, with so much velocity and already very little control, just slipped off the road.
There was no place safe for me to pull over but since no one was behind me, I slowed down just long enough to see the maniac get out of his pickup. I knew he was OK because he started up and out of the ditch screaming and waving his fists at me as his pickup just sunk a little deeper into the mud.
All I could think after I safely parked in my own driveway and said goodbye to Jake was, “I wonder what that guy’s answer will be the next time someone asks him, ‘What’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done?’”