whatever you do, don't stop

I'm invincible!!!!

Actually I'm not. However, I am 23, and I don't feel my mortality with any great conviction. Rumor has it that flash floods are bloody dangerous. So I'm a little surprised at how cheerily I drove through one recently.

Whoops, you need context: It rained a lot in N.E.Pennsylvania and New York last night. The highway closed, the water in the area is contaminated, and last night there were flash floods everywhere. This presented me with some scary decisions while trying to get to Clarks Summit to get to BBC and pay my astronomical library fines.

Apparently, flash flooding doesn't always look scary or dangerous. In my case, I knew the water was deep, I knew it was bad, but it didn't click that the radio warnings might really apply to me. Ford Escorts are probably designed to drive through flash floods, right? But everyone was thinking the same thing, even the people driving junkers. It was either make it through a little water, or wait an hour or two to get wherever we're going. Stopping seemed scarier somehow. That's life: the water's rising, but keep on moving because stopping is way scarier. So think with me: if you were at a fork in the road, right leading through deep water and to your destination, and left providing a possible alternate route if you were willing to stop and wait, would you go left, or would you have watched the cars in front of you somehow make it through the water and decide you could make it too? [Subaru drivers: no it's not rhetorical.]

While I drove through, I was thinking, "If something bad happens, I'll feel really stupid." But since I was fine, I guess I'm just cool.