Saturday, November 5, 2011

Broken Windshield

     Whack, the sound caused we to flinch and I quickly looked to the left side of the windshield to see where the sound came from.  Almost immediately I see the large star of cracks right at the edge of my windshield.
     I was on my way home from a trip to Idaho. 300 miles down, three days there and another hour on the return trip to be in perfect position for a rock to come flying out of the tire of tractor trailer hauling hay and hit the very edge of my window.  A moment here or there, a mile per hour faster or slower, an inch right from where I was and my window is unbroken.
    My morning had been spent getting ready. I stopped to visit with my wife and say goodbye to her.  We spent some time visiting with one of our old friends at the university, refused some birthday cake, and I got on the road.  Along the way I drove with the cruse control on and off. I stopped to take several pictures. I even spent some time slowly cruising the edge of the highway anticipating a picture spot of the Teton mountains.  My van is somewhat underpowered so it takes some of the steep grades more slowly than a car. I am not consistently at the speed limit.  The steering and my concentration in not very precise so I use up most of my highway lane to heard the car down the road.
   Given all of those variables what are the odds that a rock will come flying out of a truck tire that has been driving on the same road, only in the opposite direction, for who knows how long and hit my windshield at exactly the left most edge with sufficient force to seriously crack my windshield?
      I read an article the other day that there were a routine number of accidents where a person was crushed by a car in a very peculiar fashion every year and no matter what variables were altered the same number of accidents with the same peculiar characteristics still occurred.
     So is it a coincidence and the odds are simply high enough that a broken windshield is part of the scenario or is it fate and my windshield was the one of those windows that needed to be broken to satisfy it?

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