The Ice Storm That Never Was

All right stop, collaborate and listen...

Oh man, did I just quote one of the worst songs in all of musical history? (outside of Paul McCartney's post-Beatles career, I mean)

Sorry about that, but I warned you, I'm out of practice.

Anyhow, it's freezing-ass cold here in Nashville, and while the State of Tennessee declared an official emergency due to weather, Mother Nature kind of gave us a break.  Oh yeah, there was lots of sleet and freezing rain out last night and all the schools are closed and everyone bailed out early from work and such yesterday, but the reality is that it ain't all that bad.  The roads are bad, just not nearly as bad as anticipated, although everything else is covered in that bumpy rime ice that's so hard that it'll break an ice scraper.

Really bad weather makes me nervous, too.  Last January, I was driving home in the freezing rain and my truck got annihilated by a big ol' 18-wheeler out on I-65.  He sideswiped me and kept on going.  My truck got spun around seven or eight times, according to eye-witnesses, and I tore down about a hundred yards of barrier cable in the median, but I walked away without a scratch.  A few bumps and bruises, that's for sure, and the wreck looked so bad that the cops tried to call an ambulance for me, but I emerged surprisingly ok. What really pissed me off was that my truck, which I loved, had been paid off for less than a year and was still in damn-near mint condition. 

However, the encounter with Mr. Diesel Truck fixed that.  Both axles were broken, the frame was bent, and it looked like somebody took a big ol' can opener down the side of the body.  But the cab was intact and I emerged unscathed, further proof that like the Highlander, I am an Immortal!  And long-time readers know how proud I was of this vehicle when I bought it and how happy I was when I paid it off.  Unfortunately, she met a sad end...

Yeah, I was really bummed at the time, and driving up the ridge just south of my house is a white-knuckle experience at least once a week.  I had to go to traffic school in Millersville last year (the little burg on the side of the highway, whose police force came to my rescue that night), and the cops there said that somebody gets killed on that stretch of highway about once a week.  So I'm ok with not being out playing frogger with with all the semis this morning.

Anyhow, for those of you who aren't on my facebook, my period of grief over my wrecked truck didn't last too long.  Luckily I have really good insurance and they gave me about five grand more than I thought I'd get, so I took the settlement check down to the local Dodge dealer a week later and got this...

Yep, that is a 2012 Challenger R/T, with 5.7 liters of fire-breathing muscle under the hood, all 375 horsies worth.  That photo above is not actually my car, just a stock photo from google image search.  But that's what she looked like on the day I picked her up.  And although she was extremely cool, she wasn't quite cool enough.  So I spent a few extra ducketts and had her slightly modified at an aftermarket automotive accessories shop.  THIS is my car:

 

I think the rally stripes up the coolness factor by at least an order of magnitude. Now, everywhere I go, I always get compliments on it.  And whenever I stop to pump gas, somebody always asks me about it.  Just the other day I pulled into Kroger and as soon as I opened the door, the kid getting into the car next to me said "Holy crap that's a cool car!".  I think he might've been all of ten years old, too.  And the rumble it makes when I first start it up has been known to cause quite the visceral reaction for anyone lucky enough to be standing nearby...

I can thank long-time reader T-Rev for making this happen--he got a Challenger a couple of years ago when they first came out, and as soon as he sent me a picture I was smitten.  Of course, I figured I'd never get one, as my plan was to drive my Dakota until the wheels fell off.  Actually, that pretty much happened, just much sooner than I anticipated.  Anyhow, that's enough automotive porn for the day.  But now y'all know why I don't want to drive my baby around in this mess, especially when these idiot truckers turn their trailers over on the freeway a couple of times a week in good weather--I can't even imagine how bad it is out there on I-65 today.  

Anyhow, I'm waiting on the mailman to bring me a check from Fidelity today.  I liquidated a little bit of stock about a week and a half ago, and I'm just waiting on it so that I can get to the bank and then pay a few bills and such. Once traffic dies down and it hopefully warms up, I'll make my way back down the hill towards civilization and get my errands taken care of.  Right now, however, I'm just holed up in the shanty trying to keep warm.

Mikey