I've watched the Final Destination movies a lot, and I always think when I watch them how reasonable it is that some of those things that happened, could actually happen! I mean it's not that far fetched that a series of random events can occur and lead to one's death. Then again, maybe it just seems reasonable to me, because random acts happen in my life almost on a daily basis...food for thought.
Speaking of which, this leads me to my own personal Final Destination moment I had the other day. I was driving in to work along Interstate 5, and it was an unusually blustery day in San Diego. My car was swaying all over the road and there was debris flying around all over. I found myself behind a large truck that had a lot of equipment in the back and what looked like a lot of yard tools. I did think for a moment that it would be bad if anything flew out of his truck, but it all looked secure to me. I wasn't tailgating him, in fact, I kept a reasonable distance because on that stretch of the 5, traffic tends to come to sudden halts all the time.
I was maybe 10 minutes from work, still behind the yard tool truck, and there was a sudden gust of wind that really shook my car....and then before I knew it there was a loud smash and a pitchfork grazed by my head just short of piercing through my face. I had no view out my front window and I suddenly panicked by the whole event, and lost control of my car. I was in the far left lane, and I still had sense enough to swerve to the left to avoid colliding with any traffic in the lanes next to me. I slammed on my breaks and skidded off the side of the road and came to a stop. My heart was racing, I thought I may have even peed my pants, and I couldn't move. I was frozen like a deer in headlights. I couldn't quite comprehend what had just happened. I very slowly tried to glance to the right to see if that really was what I thought it was...being very careful not to move an inch, because I had no idea what the status of this "thing" was, I moved my eyes to the right and made out the sharp piercing prongs of a pitchfork right next to my head. I couldn't help but think "really?? could this possibly happen to anyone else but me?!" Sometimes, even I have a hard time believing this stuff really happens to me. I mean, c'mon, near death by pitchfork?!
The truck that had lost the pitchfork saw me lose control of my car and realized what had happened. He pulled over not far ahead of where I stopped and came back to see if I was ok. There also happened to be a cop car that was only 3 cars behind me and had already pulled over at this point. I was trying to calm myself because my heart was racing out of control. The cop came up to me and tried to open my door, but my doors were locked. He knocked on the window and told me to open the door. I opened the door and he was like "holy hell, is that a pitchfork??" I jumped out of the car at this point, just wanting to get away from it, before it really became a Final Destination scene and I ended up with a pitchfork through my head. That's really not what I want on my obituary. Sure, I don't really want the boring "died of natural causes", but I'd rather have something exciting like plunging to my death off a cliff rather than a pitchfork through the head.
Anyway, the cop was writing up the incident and then they pulled the pitchfork out of the windshield and called for a tow truck, since I couldn't drive my car without being able to see out the front! I debated sending an email to my managers explaining why I was going to be a little late that morning, but I didn't. I don't think they fully understand the random acts of debbie, and the few incidents I have had to share (swallowing my tooth, crashing on the motorcycle) they have found ridiculous, so having a pitchfork nearly kill me would probably not be something they could handle or believe. So, I had the car towed to work, and said nothing to my co-worker or my managers about the incident, and called the windshield repair people to come out and fix her up!
I'm a little traumatized driving behind any vehicle that has anything in the back now. I had a truck cut me off yesterday that had plywood in the back and all I could envision was one of those sliding out the back and decapitating me. So, I took an early exit just to get away from it. I think it will take time before I stop seeing everything as a Final Destination scene!
