No, I want no part in your death-wish!

There are certain things that are acceptable when one is operating a motor vehicle. For example, when driving, if you should find yourself in a spot of trouble then please, by all means, pull your vehicle onto the shoulder and proceed as the situation dictates.

However, once on the shoulder, you must account for the severe difference in speed between your parked (and therefore zero mph) car and the ones occupying the road - 60-80mph, and I'm being generous.

Now, if you're an intelligent person, you'll wait for a break in traffic and/or gradually pick up speed in the shoulder. Unless you have a death wish.

I ran into one such person,  the kind with a death wish - not the kind with a brain, yesterday.

I'm driving on I-20 (the same fateful road where I was brutally attacked by a pigeon - the kind with a deathwish, not the kind with a brain), following my dear friend Heather to Cedar Hill so we can catch Shutter. I've got my window down and I'm rockin' out to Pretty Baby and all is well. That is, until someone who's in the shoulder decides that by-golly now is the time to merge! Merge, I tell you! I believe that someone in front of us tapped their brakes and intended to let the guy in, probably not knowing that this certain someone couldn't exactly find the gas pedal like normal people, but instead of not letting people drive for him, he decides heck yes, now is the only chance! 

I was slightly distracted by another...ahem...driver, who was busy speeding past me on the left and darting in front of an 18 wheeler (which, let me tell you - if you didn't already know - is not the vehicle you want to get into an 'argument' with). When I glance back in front of me I see shoulder-man cut back into my lane, subsequently causing ALL of us to literally stand on our brakes. I'm actually surprised there wasn't some sort of pile-up, but there wasn't - just barely. I swerved into the shoulder to avoid rear-ending Heather, and I'm glad I did because when my car finally stopped, in the shoulder I was a little past her bumper. And my initial swerving may also have prevented the car behind me from ramming into me.

Yeah.

It was an awesome experience.

If anyone is driving on i20 any time soon, please let me know if you see my heart and/or my stomach. Both, I believe, fell out and are as of yet unaccounted for.

On the positive side...Shutter was good. Creepy. Yep, good and creepy.