Yikes!

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Have I mentioned that I am deathly afraid of road debris?  I have had multiple instances of flying debris on roads and highways.  In my second year of college I had a horrific accident where a brush hog ran over a pipe in the median.  The blade that struck the pipe catapulted the pipe through the air...aaaand my windshield, breaking my collarbone smooth in half.  If the pipe had struck one inch below it would have gone through my heart.  Or if it had struck one inch above, it would have missed me completely.  My whole family was completely and totally wigged out by this freak accident.  Oh yea, and those eight weeks of healing...they were awesome.  Anyone ever broken their collarbone?  I'd never broken a bone before and haven't since. ::knocking on wood::  At the time I was told that is the most painful bone you can break because it is your center of gravity.  Think about it.  You can't do anything without moving your collarbone.  Sit down, lean over, reach for something...you name it.  At the time, the only thing I found that didn't hurt was simply standing up straight.  And then your feet hurt after a while.  I cringe in memory.  However, after witnessing my mother break her hip a couple years ago...I don't know which is worse.  It's a toss up.

The year prior to this incident I had a double blowout on the highway.  There was a washer-sized box and the car in front of me zigged at the last minute.  I guess you could say that since I didn't have the reaction time to zag at the last minute either, that I had been following too closely.  Regardless...you get the idea.  Two tires.  Flat.  You could see the inside of the tire, it was that bad.  That was fun.

I've had other incidents where I've gotten a box caught in the wheel well of my car and a couple flats too.  Last year I had an incident with a huge sheet of ice.  I was driving to meet my mom for lunch and was following a semi on the highway.  FYI, this time I was following with enough distance.  But, when a huge sheet of ice flies off a truck...it doesn't really matter how far back you are.  WHAM!  A nice, big, two foot long, horizontal crack in my windshield.  Luckily, I wasn't hurt and the windshield wasn't too expensive to replace.

::sigh::

So, you're probably wondering where this is going.  Well, yesterday I had lunch with my mom.  And on the way back to the office I saw this.  And it made my heart beat faster (not in a good way) and I couldn't take my eyes off it.  Can you see it?

Look closely.

Yes, that is a HUGE chunk of frozen snow on top of that semi.  I'd say a good foot or two of snow still hanging around after our 14.1 inch snow storm on Christmas Eve.  This has apparently stuck around and gotten scarily frozen and hard on top of this truck.  I just pray and hope someone doesn't have the same luck or fate that I have had in the past.  Please, please, please watch out for things like this!!  I always do simply because I'm prone to them!!  And the sad thing is, if ice or snow falls off trucks or other cars, they are not liable for it...at least that's what I heard on the news last year right after my windshield was busted.  Not that I could have sped up and gotten the truck's license plate anyway.  I was too busy shaking and trying to get to the restaurant to meet my mom and cry to her about it. 

**Please completely clean off your car in this weather if possible (obviously if it's frozen solid then you can't) and watch out for things like this!!