At about 10 a.m. on a recent Toosday d(e)riving home, the thought popped into my head that this day is starting out to be

THE DRUNCKEST DAY, EVER.

This ‘thought’

(or perturbation/malformation of some sort of mental process

(or maybe an un-process))

bubbled up into my mind after

a couple beers

(and a cannabis gummy) – all of which I did not ingest until after I discovered my wife’s car could go from 60 to 0 mph in less than 200 feet, on an icy road.

On the icy Interstate.

Alongside a semi-truck.

I was returning from an overnight in Denver visiting family, and though it was later April, it had snowed the night before and temperatures were still below freezing. I was passing a semi, with another car (or two?) nearby, on a 2-lane each-direction section of I-70 a bit west of Idaho Springs. The highway surface was, due to the temp, a bit icy and a little slushy. I was driving what seemed to be a prudent 60 mph or so, tho’ the limit was 75. My/our collection of vehicles rounded a corner and a mere 200 feet or so ahead (less than a football field) there were two stopped cars. One was in the left lane, as if parked, with a man standing nearby. The other was perpendicular to the road, less than 100-feet closer than the other vehicle, nose against the right guard rail. I am probably not a “wise septuagenarian” but fortunately I am not prone to slam on the brakes, and, instead, started the slow gradual pumping. There was a few-second span of time in which part of me realized that things might not “go well”. Amazingly, my car slid to a stop mere feet from the car parked in the left lane. More amazingly, the other three vehicles somehow maneuvered around the right-lane perpendicular car and the one I was stopped at, and the man I had seen earlier must have jumped over the median wall or the guard-rail.

Well … I started-up relatively quickly, because, obviously, the alternative was to soon become a highly-probable highway-mishap-statistic. As I type this, it’s been about a week and I wonder what “badness” may have later happened because of the two stationary vehicles in that more-than-slightly-dangerous location.

I drove on, slowly at first, gradually speeding up back to 60 mph, and as I passed the semi from before, the driver looked over, gave me a thumb’s-up while doing the “what the f- ?” shrug with his shoulders. I signaled a thumbs-up back at him and continued on in a bit of a daze.

I presume your “ordinary everyday Amerikin Hero dude” would spend the rest of the day doing, well, “something special and heroic” after such an incident. Walking the dogs at the local animal shelter, picking up trash in the park, feeding the orphans and/or homeless – something useful for the benefit of mankind and the environment. I am not such a person. I decided to start drinking beer.

You’ll be glad to know that in spite of the possibility of continuing on into The Drunckest Day, Ever, I side-stepped the process after those two beers (and cannabis gummy) – waiting ‘til I got home to achieve, no, not T D D, E, but a mildly intoxicated remainder of the day.