This is the world's way of saying "it's not your time yet."

It keeps on raining lately.  Since last week, the rain comes and goes, and today there is even a flash flood warning, and the asphalt never really dried up for the past few days, which explains a lot of cars stopped along the shoulders of the road with headlights turned the wrong way.  Oh, that is nothing, as no casualty would be recorded in much of the cases, human or car.  But accidents were everywhere as well.  I have mentioned that college started yesterday; I probably also mentioned that traffic was hell.  Here is the reason.

As bitchy as I am about people not being able to drive well, I would have never guessed that I would be part of the rainy day scenery as well.

Oh, but I consider myself lucky compared to the examples I have mentioned.  I have not gotten into the accident, nor did I spin out and end up in a shoulder with car in opposite direction of where I should be going... oh, but I did spin out of control.  Quite violently, in fact.  I consider myself lucky that I drive a compact; if I drove, say, a Jeep, I would be writing a blog from heaven right now.

So this is what happened:  I went through the Spaghetti Junction (probably one of the landmarks here with pretty negative connotation here) to the southbound interstate.  There is a somewhat sharp curve--not very sharp, but sharp enough to warrant a slow approach, especially in wet weather--near the entrance to southbound interstate.  I did slow down, but apparently not enough.  So there I went, with the tires losing grip and car fishtailing into chaos.  The car was turning clockwise, so I counteracted, as I learned from what I think was a defensive driving course.  The car then commenced to fishtail to the left; I turned the other way.  I slipped out of the regular lane and onto the shoulder, but the rear wheel was caught in the grassy no-man's-land that separated the on-ramp from the lane; I was straightened out after the troubles of a few seconds.

After I got the car under control, I wanted to take a look at the extent of the damage; I did not want to drive in a car with parts falling apart.  Fortunately, it looked all right; but that was after looking at it in the parking lot at college campus.  I stopped at the shoulder of the interstate initially, but it was full of water and I did not put enough space between driver's side door and the highway lane.  So I stopped for no reason there at all.

Was it a life-changing moment?  I do not know.  The whole endeavor felt like a miracle, however.  I have essentially skid the car across at least three different lanes, not including the shoulder, going at some 40 to 50 miles per hour, and I have not hit a single car.  It does not merit an applause; it was a very dangerous driving.  If anything, that was a very lucky incident, or as I said earlier, a miracle.  My heart was not pounding after the experience, though.  I do not know what it was that kept me calm and perhaps a little detached.  Did I not fear death?  Did adrenaline not rush in?  Perhaps, just perhaps, I wanted things to end--with regrets, sure, but at least I do not have to suffer by toiling through the rest of life.

Oh, but I will not spend much time in negative thought.

At least the car is okay, right?  Aside from the rear wheel chewing up the grass...