Stupid rain...

I fully shit myself driving to uni today, had I not have been running late for class I would've pulled over just to settle myself down a bit. But no, instead I wound down the window and lit up a smoke (Sorry Mum, I know your car is supposed to be non-smoking).

So what scared me?

Simple, the heavy rain we'd been having all morning. -Sounds stupid doesn't it?

I guess I should explain...

A couple of years ago, maybe 2 weeks before Christmas I was on my way to work to cater for a Christmas break up function at one of the local wineries.
It had been shitty weather all day and was still bucketing down with rain as I left for work.

I was going round a corner (admittedly a little faster than I probably should have) hit a small puddle on the road and began to aquaplane.
I began to veer off to one side of the road and so without thinking my reflexes kicked in causing me to over correct my steering.
So now instead of heading into the trees lining one side of the road, I was spinning across into the other lane and off into the trees on the other side.

It was right about now that everything began to go into slow motion.
I was spinning out of control and can remember hearing a loud thud from the rear of the car.
In my mind, my time was up. I felt my body go completely limp and closed my eyes.

A few more loud crashes, the sounds of buckling metal and the feeling of being a pinball being struck around by flippers on a pinball table sunk in.

The car eventually came to a complete stop... It took a few seconds to realise that I was still in the land of the living.
I opened my door and walked around the car to check what I'd done.
Minimal damage to the rear driver's side... I thought I'd gotten off easy, until I noticed the front passenger wheel. It was buckled in and almost at a right angle to what it should have been.

Just as I picked up my phone, a lady pulled over to ask if I was OK. By this point I was running on pure adrenalin and was only really worried about the fact that I was going to be late for work. I quickly told her that I was fine.
Thankfully she could see this wasn't quite the case. She helped me ring my Mum and she explained what had happened before passing the phone over to me, at which point I broke down in tears.
Thinking you're about to die and then hearing Mum's voice was all to overwhelming for me.

The bit that got me though was the phonecall I'd placed to Tracey.
I had to leave a voice mail message, which went something along the lines of 'Hi, Trace it's Nelo. Just letting you know I'm gonna be late for work tonight, I've had a car accident. I'm fine, I'll be there as soon as I can!'

Needless to say she gave me the night off.

Which brings me back to this morning, I aquaplaned ever so slightly as I was driving and all of that came rushing back to me again.

Still, I guess the point is I've learned from my lesson. And being freaked out every now and then probably isn't such a bad thing.