Hubz reluctantly allowed me to drive his truck. The truck had a name.
Betsy.
Betsy was part of Hubz' life long before I ever was. He had Betsy since high school. Betsy was beloved. Mostly by Hubz only but really she wasn't that bad.
Like I said, Hubz reluctantly "allowed" me to drive Betsy to work. In Atlanta. Thirty miles away from our home. Thirty miles each way. After a fifteen minute speech on how to operate Betsy and all but hugging the truck, Hubz handed me the keys.
I had driven Betsy before. Around the yard and stuff. Oh yeah, I got to drive her to the end of our road once. So I had this. I knew what I was doing. It was all good.
Hubz left for work and I know he probably said several prayers. Well, maybe he didn't. But he should have.
When it was time for me to leave, I got in Betsy, adjusted the seat so I was sitting almost on top of the dashboard, plugged in my iPod - seriously, what's more important than your tunes, right??? Then I set off on my way to work.
It was a drizzly morning, but nothing too bad, or so I thought. I was tooling along, listening to my music, I think it was Beyonce or maybe vintage Madonna but don't tell Hubz that cause he told me not to play that crap in his truck. But anyways, all was good.
I made my way through our little town and got on the interstate. I even made it through the endless construction zone with no problems. Again, I had this.
I had this right up until some idiot in a speeding Toyota Tacoma came barreling up on my left and hydroplaned right in front of me.
Crash. Boom. Bam.
I had no where to go. Except until after he hit me then I had three lanes of traffic I went right through to the side of the road. I was so very lucky that day because where this accident happened normally there are tractor trailers in each of the three lanes. I don't know how I did not hit anyone else or anyone else hit me. (Well, that's not true. I know that I was blessed and that God was on the job that morning.) That's the only way I can explain the fact that I did not end up under the wheels of a huge truck. Sorry to be morbid but that is the truth. The other guy wound up in a ditch. Once I realized I was riding in the emergency lane, I stopped the truck. Ole Betsy was still running and ticking right along.
Well, except for that busted radiator. And no, the radiator has absolutely nothing to do with the radio. Some people might get confused with that since the words are almost the same - at the beginning - you know "radia"-tor, "radio". See, very similar. Anyhoo. Hey, at least my iPod was okay. Hubz' wasn't as thrilled about that piece of information later on like I was.
Even now, looking at these pictures, I don't see what the big deal is. It's not that bad. I've done much worse. I mean I've seen much worse.
When Hubz got home that night, he spent some quiet alone time with Betsy. I know he tried to mend their relationship and he probably promised that I would never mistreat her again.
Blah. Whatevs. It's a truck. An old truck. We live in the South. It's supposed to be beat up. It's like a badge of honor or something.
So this concludes our trip down memory lane. Hopefully, I won't let pictures build up on our memory card. Or at least I'll destroy the evidence next time.
