Sho mo nai!

This Past Tuesday Evening Nearly Saw The End of Me

On further examination yesterday in the daylight, where I would have gone over was only fiveish feet at best, and onto trees and into a concrete wall, not onto a rice field.

Here's what I wrote when I got home on Tuesday night:
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Well, so I almost died today. That would have sucked. I fell asleep in the car on the way to judo. I woke up facing a curve and the end of a guardrail. It was a six foot drop or more from the concrete curve to the rice field or whatever below. My car, composed of metal thick as a tin can, would have crumpled on impact, surely rendering my legs fractured beyond repair, likely breaking my neck or back, potentially giving me a nasty head wound, or simply killed me instantly. Unlike the apostle paul who was only sticking around on earth to help the churches, who said "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain" I'm not quite ready to be finished with this life quite yet. It does give you a sense of how fragile your own life is when you see that it could end so quick like that. If I was driving a larger car, a regular car (not a yellow plate) my life would not have been so much in danger. And it's not necessarily the car as much as my size in relation to it. Another good reason to hurry up and get the larger car like the doctor recommended.

So anyway, I woke up. By the grace of God I reacted exactly as one would hope: breaks, strong pull to the right, check for oncoming car, pull back into own lane. In this respect, the kei car was great because it has armstrong steering, which means perfect control over turning.

Really folks, it was God's mercy and protection and nothing else that has allowed me to type this post. That could have been the end of this body, and a pointless end at that.

The whole falling asleep thing was wild. Thinking thinking thinking WOAH! swerve swerve swerve I'd had no idea that my eyes had closed. It's even more shocking because it was still daylight. I think it's the humidity and the fact that I had neglected to open windows or turn on the A/C. It didn't feel SO bad, but mixed with a little tiredness and a long mentally busy day, i guess that finished me. Add to that the fact that the cassette player died on sunday, so I was listening to music with headphones and that I was low on gas so I was driving slower to conserve, except when on those downhill slopes (like the one I fell asleep on) which let you go fast with little gas. The sum is the danger which was unrecognized by me until it was upon me.

I guess I should institute a post-school siesta policy from now on, or something.

Anyway, just wanna publicly thank God for keeping me alive and with a useable car. Thanks Lord!

You know, being alive is nice.

posted by Fletcher @ 1:12 a.m.