I’ve had this one earring since the ’80’s. The 1980’s, that is. That’s when “Melissa” used to wear mismatched earrings on thirty something. Remember that? Anyhoo, this little orb reminds me of a recent experience that was just cray-cray. Seriously.
Mister and I were out for a drive. It was just a drive, the sort of thing absolutely no one does, so of course we were doing it. We were flying down a highway in the dark. Traffic was moving at a medium density, which for L.A. is awesome. I was driving, and we were talking. There was a pick-up truck in the lane in front of us, about 4 or 5 car-lengths away. I guess they’d been shopping, because they hit a bump and a cardboard box bounced right out of their truck and onto the freeway. It was a sizable box, about 2 1/2 feet cubed. It jumped around a few times, then popped open. At that point, a globe rolled out and started doing a highway dance. As all this transpired directly in front of us, and as we were moving at a pretty fast clip (around 65 miles per hour), I had to think fast. I dodged the box just fine, but the globe proved a bit more tricky. There were cars on either side of us, and I told Mister to brace. I managed to barely clip the globe and we moved on. We were fine. Not a scratch on the car (as we would later learn). It was a non-event.
But what about the folks in the pick-up? They had clearly intended to take that globe with them on their journey. I imagine them getting home, looking in the back of the truck and realizing their purchase was missing. “What the hell?” The money. The trip. The effort. Bye-bye globe.
As Mister and I were only out for a drive, we turned around pretty soon after “The Whole Wide World” incident, and headed back the other way, toward home. At about the same spot as the globe encounter – on the opposite side of the road – officials were clearing up the debris from an ugly accident. A smashed-up car was turned around backwards and was clearly totaled. Mister wondered what had happened. I said that maybe a globe had jumped the median and someone else hadn’t been able to dodge it. Truth is, we’ll never know.
We managed to survive the world. In fine fettle. The significance wasn’t lost on me.