Man ponders mortality under a car

What I did I’ve done almost every day of my adult life—I stepped out of my car.

I wasn’t thinking much about traction and balance. The morning temperature was well below freezing and I forgot about black ice. If you had been watching me you would have thought some hidden monster grabbed my ankles and suddenly yanked me underneath my vehicle.

They say it’s not the destination but the journey that makes a trip. If that is true then I had an exciting trip. There was the sudden awareness that I was airborne looking up at blue skies and white clouds with my arms swinging in wide circles-- next I landed and slid on my back and hind end. I had enough take off momentum to have reached South Carolina.

Funny what crosses your mind at times like that. Say for instance Mr. Allendale, my high school physics teacher. I realized the old codger had been right all along-- there is gravity and there is mass and the two are eager to connect. I said ….a word… then hit the ground.

I had never been underneath my car until that morning. Small metal pipes, long pieces of steel rods here and there at odd angles and an oil pan I’ve never seen were all inches above my face. I stared dazed at tubing, the backside of my tires and at nuts and bolts screwed into the sides of things for seemingly no reason. Everything was colored muddy brown and smelled of earth and oil and seemed to say “You don’t belong here and you know it.”

But there is something about landing after a fall that requires you take a moment. You want to establish that you are alright so you take inventory of joints and bones—count the stars in your eyes and if everything is alright you tingle with thankfulness. I wanted to get up quickly as though this never happened.

But if you ever find yourself down like that and alone-- and if you have the time, I suggest you use some restraint and stay there a bit. All at once the fact that you are not paralyzed and will not need metal rods pushed into your spine to keep you upright brings a smile. It is an “aha!” moment—you realize your days are numbered and full of trouble, you are small potatoes in a big world and for once you’re glad that extra 10 pounds went to your rear end. From now on you intend to enjoy each day you are given and to stop being such a grouch. You wonder just how close the earth really has come to being hit by a huge asteroid but nobody knew about it and so you fell in love and bought the house and raised the kids and took that trip to the Grand Canyon all the while not knowing just how lucky you were. But now you know.

So you make a mental note to help out more around the house and to call your mother tonight “---’cause, I love you mama.” Appreciation, remorse and redemption all in one day. God sent Abraham to the mountain for that information, me He threw under a car.

Oddly enough the down side was-- not enough injury. I was hoping for some good deep dark bruises to get me out of work, maybe even some sympathy but no such luck. A few scrapes and a light yellow bruise on my jaw was all I had to work with. The best I could muster was three days of stiffness and moans whenever I got up out of my recliner. But then, that happens anyway so no one noticed.