Murphy's World

Middle of the road no place to build a snowman

One night, during a vicious snowstorm, I was fully loaded and chained up at the bottom of a mountain. Flashing signs indicated that chains were required.
     I turned on my four-way flashers and proceeded up the mountain, where the visibility was less than 30 feet. I rounded a tight turn and suddenly came across a woman standing right in the middle of the highway, pointing her flashlight at her car off to the far right side where her husband was trying to put the chains on.
     I honked my horn and flashed my headlights, all to no avail. She remained fixed in her position. Given the conditions, I couldn’t stop in time. With little choice, I maneuvered my rig to the left. Looking in my right mirror, I could see that I barely missed her. However, I started to smile as I watched all nine of my tires on one side doing their work and spraying their heavy concentrations of snow and mud. With each flash of the lights I could see that she was starting to get covered up with layer upon layer of snow and mud. To her credit, she never moved an inch and kept that flashlight fixed on her car.
     As the back of my trailer finally passed her, I could see a small snowman holding a flashlight in the middle of the road. I could also see that other cars were following my lead to avoid her and contributed toward the ever-increasing size of the snowman.
     Gary B.
     Reno, NV

Dear Gary,
Your letter reminds us of Life Lesson No. 416: When driving over-the-road in Murphy’s World, don’t just expect the unexpected; expect the-quart-low folks to do some “never-in-a-million-years, what-the-heck-were-they-thinking, omigod-that-person-is-nuts-with-a-death-wish, triple-Lindy-with-a-cherry-on-top-half-gainer, I’ll-just-get-out-in-the-middle-of-the-road-and-flag-someone-down” dumb stuff.
     I know that’s a lot of hyphens, but how else do you explain the antics some people pull on the road? An 80,000-pound truck at highway speed is not going to stop on a dime, folks, so don’t get out in the middle of the road and think that a flashlight is going to do what high-tech air brakes can’t.
     OK, now that no one got hurt and we’ve made our point, let’s give another tip of the top hat to Frosty the Snowman. Like you, we applaud her misguided courage, but not her common sense. If not for the driving skill of you and others, Frosty the Snowman could have easily been reduced to a bunch of snowballs.

Regards,

Murphy and Lucky Dog