Memory Monday: You Spin Me Right Round

Sorry it's been nothing but Memory Mondays around here.  I promise I want to post more than once a week.  My days keep getting away from me...

I was traveling back to school from either Thanksgiving break or Christmas break my junior year of college...give me a sec to think of the year...late 1999, or barely into 2000.  Now that I think about it a little harder, I think it was back from Christmas break, because I remember that a couple of guys my roomies and I hung out with, Shawn and Sheldon (brothers, from Hawaii), had stopped by our apartment and left us a note, along with one of their new roommates Morgan.  Little did I know that Pete was going to be their other new roommate.

Dun-dun DUNNNNNNNNN!!

The drive from Idaho Falls to Logan is not too bad.  I would get some Alanis or Phantom blasting in my little Neon, and sing at the top of my lungs.  I no longer do this, mostly because I don't drive alone.  Because alone, I have a fabulous voice and can hit the notes as well and as high as Sarah Brightman.  But when I'm in the car with, like, Pete, I realize that he has a better voice than I do, and so I just hum quietly along to myself, usually.  Unless by some bizarre twist of circumstance we'd be playing some Beatles music, then I be-bop along as loud as I please.  But Pete hates Beatles, so it doesn't happen very often.

Now that I've derailed twice from the topic, I'll get back on the story.  So.  Driving along.  It's only a little bit over 2 hours from one destination to the other.  I was singing along, and noticed my exit coming up.  It had been snowing, but the road was mostly dry, with just a few wet (not icy) patches here and there.  Snow was blowing every so slightly across the freeway, but there was no reason to fear the weather on this particular day.  I turn on my blinker to indicate my exit from the freeway, and...then totally lost control of the car.

I don't know if I hit an icy patch, but it seemed unlikely since it wasn't icy.  But my car started spinning.  I can't remember if it started spinning to the right or to the left first, but it ended up doing both.  I was spinning onto the exit ramp, toward a lamp post.  Suddenly, I was spinning the other way, back on to the freeway.  Suddenly I was spinning between the freeway and the exit ramp.

I swear to you I wasn't touching the steering wheel.  Well, I'm sure I was touching it, but I wasn't steering, or over correcting, or...anything.  It's as if my car was driving itself, and I was on a horrible car roller coaster ride.

I kept thinking: oh no!  I'm going to stop on the freeway and someone is going to bash right into me!  Oh no! I'm going to run into the exit sign!  Oh no!  I'm going to fall in between the two roads and the car is going to roll! 

I kid you not that my car made at least 10 full circles.

Suddenly, and I mean SUDDENLY, my car stopped spinning.  I was sitting in the middle of the off ramp, car facing the right way.  As if I had just stopped a little early of the stop sign at the bottom of the exit ramp.

You know on "The Wizard of Oz", where Dorothy is in her house and it's spinning around in the tornado, and the furniture is moving around, and it's super windy and loud, and then instantly it all stops?  All the wind and the movement, and the house just lands there?  It was like that.

I know, absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt, that something-more like someone-stopped my car from spinning.  Someone saved my life.  Someone reached down, grabbed my spinning car, and placed it in the right place, without any harm done to me or to my car.

Of course I started crying.  I immediately said a prayer of gratitude for being safe on that day.  Because things could have turned out really really bad.

Now, I know that people have been in more dire circumstances with their cars than I was on this day.  They'd be like, spinning around?  Psh!  That's nothing!  And hey, I've ridden in cars where the driver is doing donuts in the church parking lot, and that's basically what this felt like.  But the instant stop, the instant safety, this little miracle in my life, is what was so wonderful about this memory.