Gregg vs. THE STORM (echo echo echo) - Part Two

On Friday, I posted the first part of this tale...a tale of too much water, wherein a gigantic spring-like storm decided to target ME, proprietor of "One Dad's Life", simply because I decided to stop for gas on the way home. Mean storm.

Friday, I established that after getting caught outdoors (pumping gas) during the onslaught, I was as wet as one of those sea-monkeys and my car may as well have been the little plastic sea-monkey bowl, because it was soaked as well.

I was only a few blocks from home, so I gamely decided I may as well not wait at the gas station since I thought the rain would probably last a long time.

I pulled out onto the road, which while a four lane road, is narrow and constantly shifts to weave between buildings that were there before many people had cars!  This detail makes it a tight squeeze if you are driving a big truck, but usually isn't a problem in a small car such as mine.

That is, it's not a problem until your windows suddenly FOG UP!

Good grief!

I should mention that in addition to be rather narrow for a four-lane road, whoever planned out this road wisely thought to build up gigantic curbs to compensate for the fact that there aren't any shoulders!  This, no doubt, was designed to keep cars ON the road like the kiddie bumpers in a bowling alley, in case drivers suddenly couldn't see anything...which was my current situation.

I know what you're thinking; you're thinking that this is the spot where I slammed into a curb and did great damage to my car.  Well, I didn't!  Sorry to disappoint.  However, I was having trouble figuring out exactly where the road was and I didn't want to actually STOP in the middle of the road, so I did the next most reasonable thing:

I drove like a little old lady.

Yep. I'm admitting it.  I drove at about 5 miles per hour, estimating where the CENTER of the road was (basically averaged my ideas of where the two lanes going my way were located) and TOOK OVER THE ROAD! Fortunately, there weren't any other cars on the road, except for one that was wisely staying WAY back.  WAY back.  Either they couldn't see anything either, or they COULD see and what they saw was me doing my little old lady driving impersonation.

If I saw that, I'd stay WAY back, too!

Well, I knew how to clear the window, obviously.  I've been driving for, um, many years. So, pretty rapidly the window situation was fixed.  Apparently, all that "fog" on the window has to go somewhere, though.  I know this, because it CHOSE to go directly to my glasses.

Blind again!

Good grief.  Who am I? Wile E. Coyote?  Now, if you did what all good readers should, you have already read last Friday's post.  In it, I detailed how I was totally soaked and most of the interior of my car was soaked as well.  This is were that detail becomes important.   How do you clean off wet/fogged glasses?  You dry them on something, right?  There was NOTHING dry anywhere near me.  In fact, I think the closest dry thing was probably at my house.  Which is were I was headed. Blindly.

Well, this was a new problem.  NOW, I still couldn't see the road (or much of my dashboard, honestly) and I HAD to get off the road.  However, there was that whole curb problem.  Nearly all of the buildings on this street go right up to the sidewalk, so no parking lots, either.  Then I finally came to a place that did have parking in the front...all across the front.  I assumed there wasn't a curb there at all.

I assumed wrong.

I know that I assumed wrong, because when I turned into the little shop's parking lot, I LAUNCHED the car over the curb!

Well, launched is a pretty strong word, but it sounds far more exciting than the little 5 mph bump and bounce I actually did over the curb.  So, for now, just pretend it was more like jumping the General Lee over the creek, OK?

Well....peachy.  Now I was off the road, but now there was a chance that I did great damage to my car. You knew that was coming, right?  I foreshadowed and everything back in paragraph eight. Plus, I still couldn't see.  The rain continued.  I hoped fervently that no one was following me around with a camera.

It could happen! Don't laugh at that idea.  Be nice.

After vainly trying to find a way to get my glasses cleared of water and windshield fog, I gave up.  I should note that I am pretty darn blind without my glasses, but removing them ACTUALLY HELPED! So I violated the terms of my driver's license, and drove the remaining two blocks home without my glasses.  Safely and without further incident. Oh, and the car was fine, too.

If you are keeping score on "One Dad's Life" you'll find that many "Stupid Gregg Tricks" seem to involve water in some way.  This is why I'll never own a boat.  I can't even imagine what could happen then. Actually, I can imagine what would happen, because I once kicked a propeller on someone else's boat. Yeah. I'm bright.  That was a trip to the hospital.

Perhaps I should move to a desert!

When I finally sloshed into the house, carrying my groceries and leaving a trail of water behind me that Salmon could swim upstream in, my observant wife said, "Wow. You're wet."

"Yeah, I am", I replied.

Comments

[Gregg's Dad]

This episode reminds me of an earlier time in your life at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Va. where the goal of the day was to see just how wet you could get. I recall that we dried out your shoes with a hair dryer.

[Rob Horton]

Hey Gregg! This is my first comment to your blog though I've been reading it for a few weeks now. Very funny stuff my fellow adventurer in fatherhood, funny stuff indeed! Thanks for sharing this and also nice tease from Friday till now .. way to keep us all interested :)

[LisaS]

get a convertible. much more efficient way of soaking yourself completely, and glasses don't fog up since the top's down. trust me, i KNOW this works.

;)