Thunder driving

So I'm phobic about driving in the rain.  I don't know if I've mentioned this before.  A little rain is okay, but I don't like when the road surface starts getting all puddly and the backs of cars start spraying walls of mist.  I don't like that.  The first makes me afraid of hydroplaning, the second blinds me.  So when it starts drizzling, I always really quickly pray that it won't get worse--except for when I know it will.

I left a little late for my husband's this week due to a conference I had to go to for a class.  You might have heard about the crazy storm that went through the Carolinas Saturday, or even experienced it for yourself.  I drove through it.  I left thinking that I would miss most of the rain except for one thin strip of the storm, and that was exactly what happened, but good grief was that "thin strip of the storm" the most terrifying thing I've experienced in a while.  Even when I set out from Durham there was a lot of wind, but you could keep straight with small steering correction going 75.  80 was a stretch.  As I came toward...um...Salisbury?  I began to leave the normal "hey it's rainy weather, so I'm gonna be light gray" sky and was sprinting at 75 MPH toward "you know, you maybe shouldn't be traveling in this direction" dark gray angry sky.  Occasionally there were forked bolts of lightning in the distance.  It was all very foreboding.  Meanwhile, I'm listening to happy pop music on the radio (partially in denial of the worsening situation and my rising anxiety), and unfortunately that music is periodically interrupted by "BEEP.  BEEP.  BEEP.  ANNNNNNNNNNNRRRRRRRRGGH  The National Weather Service ..." telling me about new tornado warnings in counties that sound adjacent enough that I should be worried (but that I don't know where exactly they are).  Because I am beginning to freak out a little bit, I keep calling my darling every twenty minutes.

Husband:  Hello?
Me:  Hi honey, do you know where Davidson County is?  There's like a tornado there or something.
Husband:  Well was that Davidson or Davison County?
Me:  I don't freaking know!

As you can see these conversations were always highly productive.

By this time, all the sky around me is the doom gray color and the wind is picking up, and it's beginning to drizzle.  I start thinking of what I'll do if I see a tornado looming ahead coming at me.  Well, I could exit and run to a McDonald's.  I could pull off and hide in the forest, or in a ditch, but I don't see any ditches, they always tell you to hide in ditches, why aren't there any ditches?!  I could stop, cut across to the other side of the highway, turn around, and run away from the tornado, but that's not feasible since there are dividers, and even if there were a highway patrol pathway I would lose time since they're always so curvy.  I decide that exiting would be the best option.

The rain gets heavier.  I'm getting toward Thomasville, where I hear the **** is hitting the fan.  In fact, ahead, I could see swirls of "OMG the **** is hitting the fan" sky, the color of which looks about like this:

My best approximation.  Note that skies are usually not gray-green, except for in movies where there is really bad weather or an alien invasion.

All of a sudden the rain gets really hard.  Folks slow to 45 MPH, then to 30 MPH.  I turn on my fastest wiper speed (the one where it looks like the wipers are also panicking..."We're trying Allison!  We're trying!  But this rain is too much!").  Fast forward thirty seconds and everyone is going 2 MPH.  All I can see are the tail lights of the guy in front of me (who I had the sense to get close to earlier).  The rain drops are really really big splattery ones that go PAT when they hit, and the rain is falling in these weird waves where occasionally there is a second where you can see.  So here we all are, bound together by our courage and stupidity in facing this weather, staring hard at each other's tail lights with vision for the most part completely gray with rain and occasionally getting half-second flashes of vision of relevant things like the sides of the road (obviously I was in the far right lane) and other vehicles.  We marched forward bravely at 2 MPH.  Then people started turning off.  One by one, people formed a line on the right side of the road, until the guy in front of me left.  The sad thing is, so many people had pulled over that I was actually able to continue for a while just going to the left of all of the cars on the side of the road, even though I couldn't see the road at all.  If they had randomly decided to park in the grass, I would have run off the road.  Finally it got to the point where most people had already pulled off and my guideline to the right was gone, and I pulled off behind a big truck to wait.

I cut off the wipers, and you just couldn't see through the rain.  It was falling so hard and so thick that all you could see were tail lights.  I called my husband to pass the time, but after about two or three minutes, the rain started thinning, and people started pulling back on.  I eventually decided to pull back on, too, which was stressful because I could barely see behind me and people were already going around 40 down the road.  We were able to go about 35 or 40 until the rain thinned even more to allow us to go 55.  I got behind a big U-Haul trailer with bright tail lights and stuck it out for another five minutes or so until the rain faded away and I could see light down the road.  It seemed like we drove from the depths of hell immediately into a mural on a daycare wall.  The weather seriously looked like this:

"Aw come on, you did NOT just brave the worst storm you've ever driven through, you are so silly..." mocked the sky.

Since I was low on gas, I stopped in at a gas station / mechanic to fill up and get some talk therapy ("Did you see that rain?"  "Yes ma'am, it was raining so hard here you couldn't see anything..." and so on).  As my husband and that mechanic had promised, I had no more rain all the way to Atlanta.

The good news is that although I believe that storm may have taken a year or two off my life, there is now no more pollen on the car.

I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking, "If a car comes stock with scissor or gullwing doors, I can't afford it."

Well you're wrong.

A Delorean DMC-12 (1981-1982), the kind that starred in Back to the Future, came stock with gullwings.  And you can get it today for between 10 and 30 grand.  Apparently the rest of the car sucks though, so buying it might be a bad idea.

For $30,000?  Ehhhhhhhhh...

There's also this awful looking thing called an Autozam AZ-1 (1992-1995), made in Japan, a particular one of which will run you 1,068,000 yen (or about $12,000).  Can't say anything about the rest of them though.

Definitely needed gullwings.

As for scissor doors, well, the closest you're going to get is the Toyota Sera (1990-1996), which actually has butterfly doors.  Supposedly you can get it for about $8000.

All right, this one is actually pretty cool looking.

I'm too lazy to find any others.  But there you go.  If you don't want to drop cash on a Reventon or a Gumpert Apollo (what a terrible name), you can choose from these and maybe a few more.

Roadkill skunk or unintential dispersion of radioactive materials: which is worse?

Sorry this post is so late.  This is about Thursday's drive over to Atlanta.

So the first exciting thing that happened was that I saw a skunk run over on the left side of the highway.  This means two things.  First, that I saw my first roadkill skunk (win for life experiences).  Second, that the skunk managed to make it all the way across three lanes of highway before it got killed in the fourth lane.  I accidentally (re)ran it over, and I wondered for a few minutes if I would have skunkness on my tires--fortunately that does not seem to be the case.

The second exciting thing that happened was a semi crash.  All of a sudden, right near the border from South Carolina going into Georgia, there was a huge backup of traffic.  Being as I reeeeeally needed to go to the bathroom, I went ahead and stopped at SC exit 1, got back on the road, and I think the crash was maybe a couple exits into Georgia.  When we come up on the crash, the first thing I see (before the semis) is two hazmat trucks with their lights on.  They're from different organizations (one was "Rural Oconee County Hazmat-Decon" and the other was something different), and I see people wandering down into the woods next to the road, apparently on some sort of search.  We drive up a little, and the next thing I see is a semi on the right shoulder of the road, buckled in the middle and leaning pretty strongly to the right.  Up ahead of that semi looks to be another one...? but I couldn't tell since we were all already accelerating past.  Since this is really out of the ordinary, I called my husband to share my experience.

Husband--"Was it a tanker truck?"
Me--"No, that's what confused me...  It was one of those normal, boxy, dingy white ones that aren't labeled that could be carrying anything."
Husband--"You know they carry drums in those sometimes."
Me--"No, I didn't."
Husband--"Where was it?  South Carolina?"
Me--"A little bit inside Georgia."
Husband--"You might not want to get out again for a while."
Me--"I stopped to pee like an exit up the road."
Husband--"Oh!  You got a dose.  I'm glad you aren't feeling sick yet."

You will be happy to know that I still don't feel sick, and that even in the absence of evidence of any sort, I've decided that I have been dosed with radiation and am completely immune.

Unmarked trailers could contain deadly radioactive substances.  Be aware of your surroundings.

A defense of rubber necking, a letter to a driver, and a list of lovable cars

So rubber necking.  Maybe not the worst thing.

I was thinking about this earlier when I was caught in traffic.  Seems to me like if I've waited thirty minutes or an hour because of a wreck, and if everyone else is looking, that I should get my turn too.  While it may seem rude to look at the misfortune of others for your own entertainment, I think that it's actually more rude not to look.  If someone who passes by becomes a safer driver due to having seen that nasty accident (or fender bender) and then ends up having fewer accidents of their own, it's probably worth it for everyone to just wait a little while.  After all, if that driver had an accident of their own at some point, that would be even more waiting than the rubbernecking would have been.

I got up at 6:30am, and this is really poorly reasoned.  Well, relative to all the reasons not to rubberneck, which, due to bias, I am not listing here.

Also, to the car on 751 who was not going three seconds after the light turned green:  I honked.  I'm not sorry.  I am sorry though that you were pawing through something that was important enough to you to inconvenience me and everyone else behind us.  And what was that hand gesture?  It looked like you were trying to flip me off, but somehow your hand contorted into something completely unrecognizable.  It was like you had debilitating arthritis.  But since you were still staring down at whatever had captured your attention, I can only conclude that you were so mesmerized that you forgot how to begin and complete the simple action of flipping the bird.  You're welcome, for me being so charitable.  If you had been in Atlanta, I think you would have made the person behind you so angry that they would have just accelerated full-tilt into your trunk.  As we all know, Atlanta is not a place of reason.

So now I'm going to write down a list (and provide pictures) of vehicles I like that I might realistically ever own.  If I hadn't married a lawyer (those damn lawyers), many of these vehicles would be excluded.  This is in no order, much less order of price, because I'm far too lazy for any of that.  Actually I put all the hatches at the beginning.  Since I'll probably take the photos off of MSN Autos, I'll include their price range just for fun.

Honda CR-Z.  $19,345 to $23,355.  Badass gas mileage, 6-speed manual.  This is by far the cutest car in the world.  Every time I see one (which is actually fairly rarely as they just came out), it's like being a mosquito under the influence of a bright light.  It's awful.  There is nothing beautiful about the car.  Everything is just horribly, disgustingly, soul-possessingly cute.  I hear its exhaust actually expels cotton candy fibers.

It's much more striking in person.  You'll have to trust me on this one.

Volvo C30, the older one.  $22,100 to $23,400.  Very very pretty car.  I don't know why I have such a weakness for hatches.  Also, this one you really never see.  I didn't even know it existed until last winter break when I was stuck in traffic on 95 and then, all of a sudden, it pulled up past me.  It was definitely a WTF moment.

Better in white, and better in person.  Maybe I shouldn't have added pictures.

Mazda Mazdaspeed3.  Not even sure if that's how you reference it.  $23,700.  It's a 5-door with 263hp, which I'm sure is more than I'll ever need.  Only one more hatch after this one, I promise.

Okay.  Whose idea was the hood scoop?

Ford Fiesta.  $13,320 to $17,120.  I don't like Fords and I would never buy this, but it's cute, and when I see it I am not horrified (which is more than I could say for a Taurus of any model year).  Maybe it's not one of my favorites.  But worth a mention.

I keep accidentally calling this a Fusion in my head.  But this one is nice, while the other looks atrocious.

 Now for the slightly better cars in the list.  Ones I could have within five or ten years, depending on what cars my hubby wants and how much we make as a couple.

Chevy Camaro.  $22,680 to $39,650.  Good old American-made (important to us) sports car (important to me).  It does the whole muscle-car shout-out thing, which to me is a little silly, but it does it better than the Challenger, the Mustang, and whatever other ones there are.  This thing takes up a whole parking space.  Also, I just die over the fact that they spelled out "Camaro" on the front side.  So pretty.  Did I mention it comes base with 312hp?  You have to ask for 426.

I think we could safely call this "beast."

Nissan (370?)Z.  Thought this was the 370Z, but MSN Autos is just calling it "Z."  Anyway, $30,610 to $41,100.  So much better-looking than the 350Z.  Gawd.  That thing was awful.  This thing actually looks like it could go fast.  And it has the qualifications.  It has 332 or 350hp, depending on how much you want to spend, the importance you assign to gas mileage, and how pragmatic you are when you're buying a freaking sports car.

Blue is always a good choice with this one.

Chevy Corvette.  $48,950 to $119,800.  Ideally we would be able to go for the Z06 ($74,305; 505hp).  I think the ZR1 is just a mistake ($109,000, 638hp).  If you're in the over a hundred range, you could probably make more interesting choices.  Also, they all only come with 6-speed manuals, which will encourage foot draggers to effing learn to drive stick so they can have a Corvette at all.

Yes, please.

Finally, my favorite favorite favorite car in the whole world.  This is the one I would get even above nicer things like a Ferrari (well maybe not over a 458, but that's unrealistic).  A Lotus Exige.  $65,690 to $74,995.  240hp or 257hp.  But wait.  That doesn't sound like a lot.  Well yes it does, if you count the fact that it weighs 626 pounds less than a Civic.  That's like chopping off a little less than a third of your Civic and then adding 100hp.  Oh and it looks like this:

That'll blend in at the office.

Keep in mind all this is me spewing BS, since I haven't driven (and probably never will drive) most of these cars.  I am going on nothing but looks and stats here.  But this is my blog and I think that's okay.