Automotive woes, part the first

Greetings to my continually declining readership!

Let me just get this out of the way: Normally I'm not a very a paranoid guy. That being said, I do believe there is a conspiracy against me. No, its not the usual suspects- CIA, FBI, or as that guy from Heroes says "Any organization made up of letters". Its not aliens, don't be silly. Its automobiles. Specifically, the vehicles I drive are trying to kill me. Yes- it seems that as of late my car and truck are plotting my demise.

It started a week ago, during the beginning of the great April snow storm. I had just got out of work. It was my first time driving the little Camry in the inclement weather- so even though the snow didn't look like it was going to accumulate to much, I decided to pop into a parking lot or two to see how it felt to loose traction in it since it was still pretty slushy out.

I've driven a front wheel drive mini-van and Volvo in weather like this before, but even though this is front wheel drive it felt pretty different. Instead of sliding into the direction I turned, it slid forward. Ergo, if I turned left and was slipping in a rear wheel drive I would swing the whole car left, where as in this one if I turned left and was slipping I'd just keep going straight.

I experimented with locking the back wheels with the hand brake, which would kick my back end out and move the slide in the direction I wanted to go. This worked out pretty well in the tight little corner scenarios I created in the parking lots. Then I moved back out into the open road. It was all down hill from there...well, I mean, it wasn't down hill all the way, but... --ehh, just- *sigh* figuratively okay! Cut me some break. Or give me a slack. You know what I mean.

It started out alright. I even got on and off the interstate without incident. Believe it or not, from what I could see I didn't even expect to see any snow the next morning. It was just slush-nothing really accumulating at all. This is the frame of mind you must have as you follow me through this story- "Or nothing you hear after this point will seem wondrous."

I was driving down 111, listening to Imogen Heap when the real trouble began. I was going a bit shy of the speed limit, which was 40. One moment, I noticed the vehicle riding up and sliding ever so slightly off to the left. I added a very small control adjustment ever so softly to steer the vehicle back on course, and...nothing.

The next moment, I realized that I wasn't turning left, I was spinning left. I was spinning down 111 at about 35 mph. At this point, I realized that it was as if someone had just found a big "traction for the car" switched and flipped it off. There was no point in trying to enter a correction, especially since at this point I was in a pretty delicate situation, and any false move could have very, very bad effects.

The front end was now pointed directly at the barrier rails on the other side of the street. I watched them pass me sideways with fascination. I held on to the steering wheel tensely, but did not move it. Then I felt the force of the car going across the road sideways meet up with resistance of the road and start to lean the body down.

"Is this car going to roll?" I thought indignantly.
"No way...this car is too low center to the ground...why is it going to roll?" my mind asked as I instinctively huddled a bit lower, in an attempt to either lower my center of gravity, or brace for impact- I don't really know which.

But the vehicle kept rotating until it was almost completely 180 degrees the other way. I'd say, 174 degrees, at which point, like magic, the tires suddenly found traction and pulled the vehicle to a stop. I heard something change in the engine noise and as I looked down the first thing I thought was "Stupid, you left the clutch in 4th gear! Now you've stalled it!" Then I looked up from the dash and realized I was facing the wrong way on a divided highway. Luckily, the only car coming at me was a good ways off, just cresting a hill. As calmly as I could muster, I put the clutch in, started it up, backed it up to turn it around, then was off- albeit a bit slower then before.

The whole thing probably took less then 10 seconds.

As I drove away, My first thought was "Wow, thank you Lord."
My second thought was "Dude, I'm so blogging this."

Our hero has survived the first round of automotive assault, but can he best the next, or will he be headed for the scrapyard? Tune in next week* to find out, in...AUTOMOTIVE WOES, PART THE SECOND!

By next week, I mean after I have a suitable number of comments to restore my ego which hath so freshly been brusied by the declining readership of this blog.