The BirdBrain's Nest

I accelerate from the stop light and start to go down the hill at 30 to 35 MPH. The road bends left and then bends right as you go down. At the point where you're supposed to turn left, I started turning left, but my car continued straight. I hit the curb and sidewalk and was in the grass heading for the woods that line the road. Finally my wheels catch and fling my back into the road. Normally this would be a good thing, however I'm going down the hill almost sideways. Not good. I crank the wheel right, and end up on the sidewalk again. I straddle the sidewalk and road until I get control of my car and can bring it to a stop. I get out and check my car for damage. Seeing nothing visible, I looked up the hill I had just come down and saw another set of tire tracks, besides my own, on the grass. It had snowed a dusting this afternoon, and the roads looked wet, but didn't feel slick. Caution only seems necessary when the weather is obviously bad, as in a snowstorm.

The amazing part is that I don't remember even thinking about what to do, I just reacted.

I got back in my car and drove the rest of the way to Bible study. It drove fine, but I wonder if I screwed up the alignment. At Bible study a couple guys joked about this idiot they saw swerving on the road when they were on their way there. At least we had a good joke at my expense. After I did some shopping, I went up the same road to my apartment. In about the same spot I went off-roading, someone else decided they wanted to try it too. But they didn't swerve out soon enough and got their car stuck in the trees. A fire truck, a couple police cars, and couple other cars were there helping. That could have been me!

What's weird is that about a year ago, January 30, 2005 to be exact, is when I damaged the front right of my car. I was taking a right onto a side road from the highway, and the road was packed snow so I keep turning my wheel, but the car wanted to turn a little bit and then go straight into the ditch. And take out a stop sign. The funny part about that is that if I had been a foot and a half to the left, I would have gone right between the stop sign and another sign and my car would have OK.

For a couple months I've been trying to figure out what to name my car. Because of these incidents, I've decided to name my car Tangent. How fitting.