Debris Field

Any dedicated reader of this blog will tell you that Friday is by far my favorite day of the week which is what made yesterday so troublesome.  It was the first day of the week that I didn’t have any meetings scheduled at work which is reason enough to celebrate and count the hours down to the weekly ritual of First Friday celebrations.  I decided to use my lunch hour to sneak out and get a quick oil change on the car since that pesky Toyota warning light was castigating me every time I turned the car on.  That is when my adventure began.

I was travelling on Interstate 290 doing about 70 MPH and approaching the underpass below the Mass Pike. Since my exit was coming up I was in the right lane.  Just as I entered the underpass I noticed what I thought was trash falling from the Mass Pike.  Milliseconds later I realized it was not trash but some pretty hefty debris including guard rails and large pieces of some sort of vehicle.  I didn’t have time to do anything other than try and dodge through the debris as it rained down.  I thought I made it until I heard a fairly good thump and my driver’s side tire immediately went flat. 

Where I ended Up - Accident on the Overpass in the Distance
You can Barely Make out the Overturned Truck to the Left of the White Truck

I was past the impact area by this time so I pulled over and looked back.  An 18 wheeler was overturned and still careening along the overpass.  I got out to look at the damage and while I didn’t have any major damage, the tire was toast.  My heart was going a little faster at this point when I realized how lucky I’d truly been since some of the bigger pieces of debris could have crushed my car.   The car was also coated with oil that had rained down with the debris.  My plan wasn’t to change my engine oil through osmosis so this was unwelcome. 

Car Covered in Oil Spots

I knew I had to get the car into a safer spot to change the tire so I nursed it about a quarter mile up the road where I could get farther away from the highway traffic.  I then had to figure out where all the tire changing equipment had been ingeniously compartmentalized.  I solved that puzzle with traffic buzzing by and got the car jacked up and the deceased tire off.  A state police car pulled up fresh from moving the debris as I was preparing to put the spare tire on.  Just as he pulled up another 18 wheeler rumbled by in the right lane and the rumble was enough to cause the asphalt below my jack to fail. My car unceremoniously fell to the ground.

Car Resting on Chassis with My Understating Statie

The statie and I were equally dumbfounded.  He said, “Well it looked like you had everything under control up until that point.” Obviously a master at the art of understatement, he was a good guy and called a tow truck which came in about ten minutes.  He also added my car to the accident report so if anything serious develops I’d be covered.  The tow truck lifted the car and I finished changing the tire which allowed me to get off the highway.  Strangely all this took place and I was off the highway in less than thirty minutes.

I went straight to a car wash which got the oil off the car before it dried and then since I was already in the neighborhood I got the oil changed in the car, my original mission.  I stopped by the tire place where I bought the tires less than two months ago.  It turned out I bought some sort of protection plan when I did that and it only cost me $40 to replace the dead tire.

By the time I was finished with the insurance company we were rapidly approaching First Friday celebration time and you could describe me as desperately in need of liquid refreshment.  I took care of that requirement in so short order while explaining my highway adventures to my co-workers.  While I was doing this television news in the bar showed the major accident on the Pike with the truck overturned and traffic backed up for miles.  The damage was fairly impressive and we all agreed Someone must have been watching over me.  It was at that point it come home to me just how lucky I had been.

I had dutifully reported all these events to my wife who was typically over-concerned.  Once she ascertained I was in fact whole in body and mind she observed that I had carelessly gotten some drops of oil on my pants while changing the tire on the interstate; probably the only reason I got a reprieve.

Our Two Newest Neighbors

When I came home she was nowhere to be found until I remembered the next door neighbor had just returned from the hospital after giving birth to twins.  Babies are born with the ability to attract my wife from a great distance.  I was halfway across the driveway when I heard the neighbor comment that I’d found her.

So Glad I Was Able to End the Night with This young Lady

She was happily squiring one of the young fellows around.  They were beautiful babies and my wife reluctantly parted with her new charge so she could escort me to dinner.  We ended the night at Zorba’s – huge surprise!  The medicinal effects of pizza and products of the brewer’s art went a long way towards assuaging the turmoil of earlier day’s events.  Needless to say the second half of the day was significantly better than the first.  I am a lucky man on so many levels.