My trips to IU are always eventful.
This is mainly because my beloved Indiana University is located in a town that is in BFE. Literally. It’s an hour south of Indianapolis and at least an hour off of Interstates 65 and 64. No matter where you’re coming from, you will be on a 2-lane (one lane in each direction) twisty-turny, hilly highway.
And I have no patience.
My lack of patience and lead-foot earned my little Neon the title of the “Corporate Jet.”
During my tenure at IU I was pulled over…5(?) times and received two tickets and one warning. I took online defensive driving twice and accidentally flashed an officer one time.
Yes, it was an accident. A button popped open and like a true classy college student, my hot pink bra was on display. I noticed this later when I got home and family was kind of enough to point it out. No ticket or warning was issued that time and I was about 15 miles over the speed limit.
Now, I’m fine until I get to Bloomfield. After Bloomfield, I put on Rammstein or some other angry music to get the adrenaline pumping because after Bloomfield, it’s the two-lane twisty-turny, hilly highway and I refuse to drive behind someone going less than 50 miles an hour when I can drive the highway at 65 easy.
I’ve driven the highway more times than I wanted to and while there are a total of four areas for passing in the state’s eyes, in my eyes, there are oh so many more, especially in the winter when the leaves are off the trees and you can see around curves.
Like all trips to Bloomington, my trip up this Tuesday proved eventful – and it was because I was flashing cops to get out of tickets or scoping out new passing zones. No, my trip was more than memorable because of a wiper blade.
On Tuesday, it rained and rained and rained and when I decided to leave to see my Rachelle, it decided to rain even harder. Of course, Murphy’s Law.
I have my windshield wipers on, naturally.
After about an hour driving, a notice that something funny is going on with the top of my driver-side wiper blade. I try, try, try to ignore it, but thirty minutes later, I pull over into a gas station and check out the situation.
The wiper blade is protruding about three inches out doodad and the wiper is forked. I study the blade and figure out how it fits together, than shove it back into the doodad.
I have a moment of utter ingenious wash over me at how I managed to take care of the problem so efficiently.
I drive on. The wiper is working beautifully.
However, 20 miles down the road, the wiper is back to its tricks. The problem is I’m right smack dab in the very middle of BFE. There is nowhere to stop. There isn’t even a side of the road to pull over onto. Not only that, but the sky has done from dark to pitch black.
I shake my head and drive on.
The blade gets worse. Even more of the blade is forked and falling apart.
I cuss but turn my radio up. I can see, I’m not far from Bloomington, and once I’m there will see who laughs longest, Mr. Wiper Blade.
I didn’t laugh.
No, when the wiper peel apart like a banana and flew over my windshield to land on the dark, wet pavement, I was not laughing.
I was panicking.
It was pitch black outside. There was no side of the road, no streetlights, only curves, hills, and the blurry taillights of the car in front of me.
Both of my hands grabbed at the steering wheel. I decelerated from 50 mph to 30. It was impossible to see.
This is it – that was my only thought.
This is really how I’m going to go out.
The wiper blade was my executioner and my gold Saturn was Charon navigating me across River Styxx to my final place of rest.
Dramatic, I know, but I knew I was surrounded by curving hills and had absolutely no vision…when this happens to you, come back and tell me how clearly you thought.
I wouldn’t be there to give Rachelle her wine glasses. I wouldn’t get to see my sister open her gifts. I wouldn’t get to play with the gift I got my cousin Brenton – the Lego Pirate Ship, I wouldn’t see my dog, and no, I still couldn’t fit into an Express size two (although my hair would look great, thanks Andrea!).
There was no living to old age (although the upside to that is no wrinkles or gravity taking its toll on my breasts and ass), no seeing my nieces or nephews been be born, seeing my siblings be married, no cloning my dog, and I definitely wasn’t going to find out if there was a man alive that could tolerate me for long enough to go crazy and ask me to marry him.
And I wasn’t even going out in a cool fashion. No one had killed me, no diseases had overtaken my immune system. No, I had would have to die because a wiper blade. Who dies because of a wiper blade!? Me, obviously.
Since I’m writing this blog, I am obviously still alive.
I was finally able to slow to a speed where I could ascertain some shapes. And one of the shapes I made out was an abandoned gas station about 8-10 miles from Bloomington.
I stopped and called Bill, Rachelle’s husband. No answer. I called Rachelle who was on her way home from work. She answered and I told her the situation.
I was beginning to calm down. I had survived and at the very least, I would wait in the car until Rachelle got to me, the worst of my fears would be pissing my pants (suddenly, I had a bladder the size of a walnut and I had to go).
We talked more. And then I got the bright idea to drive leaning across my console and looking out the passenger window to drive. And drive I did to Rachelle’s house, keeping the car on the road and my pants dry when I finally pulled into her drive.
The next morning, freezing and snowing in Bloomington, Rachelle and I went to get my Christmas present (620 thread count sheets that are smooth like butter and I love them, girl!) and we stopped at a body shop by the mall. We were looking up the wiper blade size and worker offered to help us.
“What kind of car do you have?” he asked.
“A 2001 Saturn,” I said.
“What kind?”
“I have no idea,” I replied. “My uncle owns a body shop and told me it was a good car to buy.”
He laughed. “Yeah, you’re not the first Saturn owner to not know what her car is.”
He looked up the different Saturn’s. I don’t own the big luxury car, so there were only two choices left. Both had used a 22-inch wiper blade on the driver side.
After shopping (and searching for the brother which is ANOTHER story), we came home for Bill to change the wiper blade. Not only was the blade frozen, but we noticed it was the wrong size.
I packed up my stuff and went over to the body shop to return the blade. Another guy was working and he went out with me pulled the make and model of the car and looked it up. Yep, the 22-inch blade was right. Which meant that someone had put the wrong blade on my car the last time I had the blade changed.
Why am I not surprised.
But, at least I’d lived to get the blade changed!
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