"Don't call it an accident. It was an incident." -Ryan

The sun was shining, the air smelled of the cut grass and hot asphalt, and for the first time that week, she was going to make it to work on time. She always took the highway to get to work, even though it was only one exit up from her own. Turning left onto the on-ramp, she pushed "1" on her radio and "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem" rang out from the car speakers. Today was going to be a good day.

Naturally, she used the on-ramp to pick up speed, since the on-ramp merged with the highway immediately. 55, 56, 57, she rounded a corner and her exit was in sight: "University Parkway, Exit 274". Something up ahead caught her eye. Brake lights? BRAKE LIGHTS?! They were so sudden, there was no time to think. Her right foot flew from the gas pedal to the brake and put as much force down as it could. The car ahead was getting closer and closer as her car was losing control. It swerved left, right, left, then right again, making its last swerve a forceful 180 degree turn as the tail-end of the car spun around. Suddenly, she was facing oncoming traffic, but only for a millisecond. The car continued off the side of the highway, down onto the steep grass and gravel hill, pressing her up against the car door as it spun around. The right two wheels of the 99 Civic lost contact with the dry earth below. The car went up on its remaining two wheels, and it seemed as though it sat there forever, teeter-tottering, deciding whether or not it would flip over and roll down the rest of the hill. It was on two wheels for only the length of time it takes to blink, but it seemed like eternity. While on two wheels, the car whipped out the weekly newspaper, brewed a cup of coffee and sat down to do that week's crossword puzzle. Then, twice as fast as the wheels went up, they threw themselves at the ground, and all was still. The car was stopped in a pile of dirt and weeds on a 45 degree hill facing the opposite direction it started out in. Was she still alive? What just happened? She couldn't hear herself think over Kenny Chesney still on the radio.

Shaking, she fumbled to turn the car off, but the key wouldn't turn. Amongst the dust pouring in through the open windows, she unlocked the car door and fell out, landing on her hands and knees. Looking up the hill towards the edge of the highway she saw two women running towards her from opposite directions. One came right down to the car and, with outstretched arms, caught her as she lost all function in her legs. Every ounce of her body was shaking, and the deep pit in her stomach fueled the uncontrollable tears that poured from her terrified eyes.

If James Patterson could put the most terrifying four seconds of my life into a very short novel, there you'd have it. Blog readers, that was my morning.

It could have been so much worse. So easily. I could have spun to the left instead of to the right and ended up being hit head-on by a car going 80, because in complete honesty, I in no way turned the wheel to spin off to the right; all I did was brake. I could have hit the cement barrier which I just missed; If I had braked a second earlier, the police said it could have been fatal to hit the barrier at the speed that I spun at. And I could have rolled down the hill. While the car was up on two wheels, I remember feeling like I was in a movie as my purse, CD's, sunglasses, everything was falling from the right side of the car to the left, and I was forced against the door. The officer said that if I was in a car that was higher off the ground than my car, like an SUV, I would have flipped easily and rolled down the hill multiple times.

I'm not dramatizing anything about it; trust me, I wish I was. This morning I was lucky. No, wait. I wasn't lucky: I was blessed. I wasn't issued any kind of ticket or warning because no damage was done to any other car. The officer didn't say anything to me lecture-wise other than "Things like this happen." The car's only damage was the wheels, which by the way are much more expensive than Ryan and I ever imagined! The only thing is that I have whiplash.. ouch!

On a side note: I think I want to learn how to spin pizza dough in the air like the professionals do. It seems like a cool talent to develop!