Guardian Angels of Mercy II: Around 3:30 p.m. Monday 7 January 2013, I’m driving my wife and our two dogs in the Prius north on I-540 for coffee at a new place then a dog-walk. We’re a mile south of “Guardian Angels of Mercy I,” north of Fulbright Expressway (mall exit), after the bend and just in sight of the Johnson exit.
Car-L, as I call the 2007 red Toyota Prius, was bought in early 2009, after a wreck just north of the Johnson exit totaled my previous conveyance the previous December. My Brick recalling the accident explains what happened when a southbound truck lost a wheel and bounced across the median into my path.
I see cars slowing in front of me, then a white sport utility vehicle directly in front of me suddenly pull over onto the shoulder. I begin braking, am confused. What’s in front of the SUV lying across the outer lane?
Black leather or vinyl, maybe 3 feet by 8 feet — the back of a sofa? That’s all it can be.
I didn’t even consider whether to drive over or around it to the left. The only right thing seemed to be to pull over onto the shoulder, behind the SUV and stop.
My Beloved is shouting, “Pull over, pull over.” For a blessed change, we agree on my driving decisions.
There was medium traffic behind me and ahead, what? The SUV’s driver is walking into the lane and lifted and carried the sofa back off (why not drag it, that’d be faster?). Now he’s standing just a few feet in front of me, holding it, and obviously wondering what to do with it. Slender middle-aged fellow, dressed casual to shabby.
None of this takes even five seconds.
Looming in my rearview mirror is a big old black Cadillac (’80s?). That one brakes, hard, and spins out one and a half times. The Caddy comes really really really close to the back of Car-L. But it stops, sideways, nose in the outer lane and rear in the shoulder behind me.
What of our pair of Tibetan terriers sitting in the back seat, one in a crate and one loose, expecting a walk in a park. They would have been hit first.
They, not to mention My Beloved and I, still are vulnerable, if other vehicles slam into the Cadillac.
Its driver I now see is elderly, rather distinguished looking. A solid thunk, and it might be over for all of us, especially the fellow standing in front of my car hood.
Other northbound cars, though, are slowing then stopping. We’re all clear.
Now what?
In the exit lane ahead I see a light-colored pickup, pulled over, whose bed is full of stuff. That must be where the sofa back fell from. Heck, it could’ve been a couch seat, minus legs, I don’t give a hoot at this point.
No crashes no injuries. If I pull out then the old guy can finish turning his black Caddy and move out, too.
There we go. He stays in my mirror until I pull off at Springdale’s U.S. 412 exit — driving on, driving extra cautiously, as am I.
Skies clear and 50 degrees. Road dry and clear.
Now what? To-go coffees at that new Springdale place and a calming walk for the four of us around the Har-Ber neighborhood.
What else?
Copyright 2013 Ben S. Pollock
