near death experience...

you know that old saying, careful what you wish for?  i had said, nothing exciting is happening in my life right now, well i am definitely eating those words.  it seems like i am on a collision course for a set of three potentially dangerous happenings.  if you recall i caught my arm on fire last week.  in order to protect myself, my daughter, and my home i have thrown away the cursed curling iron and my beloved old pink robe.

i had a fairly uneventful weekend, some family time, a little friend time, a couple of good runs, oh and i am almost died.  no joke.  i'm not even exaggerating.  i do that sometimes, but this event, this near death experience was literally the most scared i have ever been and my entire life flashed before my eyes.  along with two scenarios of how the event was going to end.

my latest "adventure" has to do with my car.  there is a ton of technical car talk, that frankly i don't know and really don't care to know, so you will just have to bare with my layman's words.  anyway, i had gone out for a run on saturday, but my running app crapped out half way through my run, so i have no idea how far i went. seeing as sunday was a rest day, i thought i would go walk the run i did to see if i could (1) get my app to work and (2) see how far i ran.  with my plan hatched, i jumped into my car and took off down the road.

she, i refer to my car as a she, started up just fine.  a nice purr coming from the engine.  i turned out of my driveway and headed south on a super sketchy stretch of road.  in the last few years there has been numerous accidents, some fatal, and a vast variety of humans walk this stretch of road.  hopefully you are getting that this is a busy road, with not only foot traffic but lots of cars that don't always drive safely. it wasn't long after i turned onto the road that something happened.

i had my foot on the gas pedal, just as one would do when they are accelerating in traffic, but i noticed that my engine was revving higher than normal and my speed was increasing.  i took my foot off the gas pedal yet my car was still accelerating. that is when i started to panic and stepped on the brake, which wasn't doing anything.  despite stepping on the brake i was still accelerating.  i'm sure beads of sweat were running off my forehead and i was undoubtedly pitting out.  up ahead of me was a very busy, kind of confusing intersection and i could see it was full of cars.

so i mentioned two scenarios...

the first involved me not being able to stop and plowing through the dozens of cars ahead of me into the gas station on the other side of the intersection.  not only would i have killed myself, but i definitely would have injured many other motorists just out on a sunday evening.

the second involved my car bursting in a spectacular hollywood explosion and my charred body recovered strapped in my seat with a permanent look of terror on my face.  at this point the engine was revved out, meaning the needle was all the way on the right in the red zone.  i've never heard my car sound that way before.  i thought if i can't shut this off it will most likely explode, which would mean imminent death for me.

both scenarios scared the crap out me

and to be honest

i really wasn't ready to die in a car crash

everything happened so fast and i was in a serious state of panic, i'm still not sure how i got stopped.  i remember standing on my brakes, listening to the engine continue to rev and feeling the car trying to obey the brakes but wanting to race freely.  somehow i managed to get stopped enough to put my car in park and shut it off.  a whole lot of awful screeching and grinding noises came from under the hood, but at that point i didn't give two hoots, i had averted death, screech away. 

i called the only person i knew to be home, my ex.  i could tell when he answered the phone he thought i was just being a hysterical girl and that i was probably exaggerating just a little bit.  he asked me a couple of questions:

him: have you tried turning it back on?

me: heck no! i'm afraid to do so.

him: just turn it on.

me: the brakes aren't working what if i lurch into a building or something?

him: put it in park, it won't go anywhere and turn it on.

me: okay.  i hold my breath and turn it on, the sounds of an angry beast being held captive released from under the hood.

him: what happened?

me: it revved out and i didn't even touch a pedal.  can't you hear that?

him: not over the phone, just stay put i will be there in a minute.

sure enough he came to my rescue, sitting on the side of the road haphazardly parked.  he started asking me more things, and i just said "try it, turn on the car."  so he turned it on, the beast screamed wildly, and he quickly turned it off.  "holy crap, that is scary!"  i shrugged my shoulders, rolled my eyes and gave the i was trying to tell you look.

here comes the technical car lingo that i don't know.  turns out there was a small piece of plastic that was keeping the throttle valve open.  i have no idea how a small piece of plastic found its way inside the black tubing, but somehow it did.  the valve was propped open just like when nemo put a rock in the fan to stop the suction so he could wiggle his way through the tube back into the tank. 

good news...i didn't die.  i didn't harm anyone else.  the problem has been fixed and life carries on as i know it.

bad news...this is only number two.  so far i've had arm on fire and almost fire-y car crash.  not sure what else the world has in store for me, but i will be more than ready to be done with this series of three "adventures".