As most of you my regular readers would have clocked, I work as a secondary school maths teacher somewhere in Manchester. One of my responsibilities in school is to provide STEM* opportunities for students. As part of fulfilling that role, we were to participate in a car race competition in Liverpool.
The days leading up to the race were rather hectic and late nights with little sleep. Well, so was the case the night before the race. I left work about 7.30 pm and had to go to B&Q (a home/hardware supply store in the UK), because thankfully, they closed at 9 pm on that week night and had the overalls I wanted the students to use the next day at the race.
I missed my exit to the store many times because I refused to obey the Sat-Nav’s instructions as I could see the large B&Q sign in front and thought I would just be a smarta** driver and just figure my way out there myself (that in itself is a post on its own! But not for today). Given that I’d never been to the store before, and especially that I was driving on a rainy, cold night and was feeling very exhausted, wishing Bumblebee was automatic so I could rest my leg some, you’d have thought I’d be too fatigued to engage my brain even more trying to solve problems I had no business solving!
After extra mileage and some annoyance as I really just wanted to be home, I eventually made it to the store, parked, went in, found the overalls I was looking for, and made my way out to head back home.
Now, I think this is why they say do not drive tired. Sometimes we think we are superhuman and can do all things whatever the state of our mind or body. Well, someone (read I) should have reminded me of that warning.
The Sat-Nav showed that I was approaching an almost 180° turn in the road after coming off a 40 mph road. Again, my brain was not engaging with what my eyes were seeing. I was too lazy/tired/couldn’t be asked to slow down and change gears down to navigate that turn safely. I’m sure you can now imagine where I got the inspiration for the title of this post!
Bumblebee started to move like it wanted to become a worm or was it a snake. Swaying from side to side like it was on a pendulum swing and was controlled by an external force, or there was some Salsa music it just wanted to bust a move to!
Well, your truly started to shout, JESUS! JESUS!! JESUS!!! I looked through my side and rear view mirrors to see if any other cars were watching Dancing on Ice that my car was taking part with an unwilling partner. And thankfully, there was none. My angel must have warned them to steer clear as the road was empty.
Finally, Bumblebee stabilised and we got back to moving in straight lines, or at least in the direction that I as its bonafide driver wanted the tyres to go in by steering. Once it was moving as I wanted, I felt my pulse in my head. I’m sure if you took a light to my scalp, maybe with a magnifying glass, you’d have seen my scalp bouncing up and down from the blood rush to my brain. My brain must have been pulsing too!
Well, you could say I was more attentive for the rest of the drive home and started praising Master Jesus that came forth for me. I even begun drafting this post in my mind, which made me smile and relax faster. I thought to myself, maybe I was so keen on the race the next day, that I decided to have my own private spin on public road, doing a Tokyo drift, when I was neither in Tokyo nor in a Fast & Furious movie nor a F1 driver.
Anyway, the car race was a F24 one but I never got in the car though.
To your finding the funny in the not-so-funny-at-the-time, . . .
*Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
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