I was driving to Shore Leave tonight, right about 5:30pm, and on the way there I had my wife pull up a Prisencolinensinainciusol video so we could listen to it. As I exited from 97 North onto 70 East in Maryland, I was telling her about Will Smith’s reaction to the song. Suddenly, I went into a skid. It had been raining, and I lost control, and I couldn’t recover. I was going too fast, I admit it. I tried to pull out of it, but with the rain, I smacked into the guard rail with the driver’s side of the car. That’s what they’re for, of course. If it hadn’t been for the guard rail, we would have gone into the ditch, I suppose. That would have been very bad, and we probably would have been injured. As it was, I only broke a nail, fortunately…I didn’t even connect why it happened – just suddenly noticed that I had a broken nail where I hadn’t before.

We had the car towed 20 miles to a gas station near my mom’s house, and she came out perfectly prepared to drive us to the con (another 30 miles or more from her house). Fortunately the tow truck driver was able to make the car drivable again – it just needed a panel pushed out – and we were able to get to the con under our own power. The only damage that needs to be repaired is that the front turn signal on the driver’s side is missing; the signal inside blinks faster to let you know something is wrong, which is a cool feature I never hoped to discover. The rest of the damage is only moderate – it looks really bad, but it’s probably cosmetic. I’ll have to have it checked out though, and I’ll check Angie’s List to find someone who will be honest about what repairs are cosmetic vs. what repairs are functional.

I don’t think I feel like driving in the rain, or after a recent rain, anytime soon. Thank goodness for guard rails.