They taught us in driver's ed to always leave an out. That is a difficult task when you have a Uhaul truck to the right, and a blue car to the left. On Sunday evening, I was headed out to pick up some take out from Outback for dinner. After getting on 59, I had moved over a couple of lanes and was heading down the road with the trio of vehicles ahead of me in the lanes to the right. Suddenly I noticed the white car drifting to right towards Uhaul. Trying to right themselves in their lane, they overcorrected and clipped the blue car on the left. Unsure of where to go, I hung back, starting to slow down. Blue headed left across the lanes towards the breakdown lane and white proceeded to fishtail wildly and head towards my lane. I continued to break hard and throw the Jeep into low gear as the white car came into my lane perpendicularly. Great, just days before I'm going to return the Jeep to my folks, I'm going to t-bone a Toyota. Then I stopped 3 feet short of the car door. A quick check in the rear view showed that the car behind me had also stopped. I was amazed that I had avoided any collision. Did I mention that "Car Crash" (Matt Nathanson) was playing on my ipod while this was all happening?
That said, it's a bit sad that I'm giving up the Jeep come Friday. Granted, I'll be driving/riding around in it for the next few weeks because I really don't want to get Boone hair all over my new Rogue*. That's right, I bought new car like so many other fools. Not that advice isn't appreciated, or even sought during my vehicle quest, but there were several factors that came into play with my purchase. Through work I was able to get a deal that ended up under invoice (not MSRP) on a 2008. There's also the fact that I plan on driving this for an extended period of time (the Jeep is a '97 and I would be keeping it if not for the folks) so why buy a car someone drove for merely a couple of years and already got rid of. Perhaps they drove it with a rental car mentality. And most importantly, I feel comfortable and safe in the vehicle. Oh, and it's blue.
I didn't get much of a chance to check everything out since it was dark by the time I headed home from the dealership, but I'm sure I'll spend plenty of quality time with all the new buttons over the next few weeks. Of course I already figured out the stereo/cd changer and the first song played was track 1 off of Guster's "Goldfly" album titled "Great Escape."
*Photo to follow when it's actually light outside.
