Having a Good One, Ain'tcha
My second job out of school started a little rough. This was during my former life as a financial analyst, fun stuff. I had started at a new firm and was naturally eager to hit the ground at full speed. My first assignment entailed a kickoff meeting in S. Portland, Maine, about a two hour drive from Boston where I was located. On the night before the meeting I set my dueling alarm clocks and then proceeded to fidget in bed for most of the night, filled with nervous energy.
A classic nor'easter was funneling its own energy down on the Hub throughout the night, dumping a lot more snow than was actually expected. I woke to far too much snow and far too much light. I'd missed both alarms and it was an hour and a half before the meeting started. Nice work.
I hustled through the shower and into some clothes and lit out for Maine. I think we'd gotten just shy of a couple feet overnight and the road crews were really just getting started. So yeah, driving conditions were stellar and I needed to hit a sustained 90 mph average to avoid showing up to my first big meeting late.
I piloted my little Jetta 16V (which, all front-wheel drive rumors to the contrary, was not a good car in the snow at all) through Boston, out across the Revere Bridge and up the interstate. Most of the drive is in Maine and Mass., you basically spend a few minutes in NH along the way. The roads were actually pretty decent until Maine. I'd called ahead and let my boss know I'd be joining just as soon as I sheepishly could.
The roads in Maine sucked. Much negative energy was swirling around my car's interior, I was cursing a blue streak at the public works folks up there, raving about how they should be old hands at getting the roads cleared promptly and the like. Sure, I'm trying to do 90 on a highway that's been barely cleared of heavy snow (for the record, I didn't really get anywhere near 90, there's only so fast you can go in bad conditions like these, but the general premise is I was being a lot faster and looser than my normally cautious self would be behind the wheel).
A bit of the way inside of Maine on 95 there's a rest stop on the right-side of the interstate. The exit lane for the rest stop is a fairly short sweeping affair that, in theory, would give a competent driver just enough pause to determine whether or not they were going to launch themselves onto the road proper in a way that would endanger other motorists. Or so it would seem.
A navy late-modely K-Car came tooling out of said rest stop at a decent clip and inserted itself into the right-hand lane directly in front of me with around 1.5 car lengths of separation. I mentioned that I was driving faster than I should have been and that the conditions were suboptimal. Braking wasn't really an option. The right hand lane where I was tracking had decent clearance, enough that you could drive without a lot of fear. The left lane, however, might have been cleared a few hours ago, who can say. It had some filled in tracks and wasn't really anywhere you would want to be at a high rate of speed in the snow.
With no other real option, I set out for the left lane before I inserted myself into the back of the K-Car. I got into the left lane proper without major mishap, and was able to get oriented straight and successfully execute the pass. Ahead of the K-Car was a car I'd been trailing for several miles, possibly 5 car lengths out in front.
As I cleared the K-Car and began to return to the relative safety of the right-hand lane, my luck ran out. I can't tell you if it was oversteer or understeer or what, I can tell you it happened exceedingly fast. Traction gave way and I proceeded to start an lazy rotation in the middle of I-95.
At one point, the car had worked its way about 180 degrees opposite of the generally recommended forward stance and I was looking direcly back into the interior of the K-Car. I can safely say this: if my face looked anything like the driver of the K-Car's, I was making a real ridiculously funny panicked face as all of this was happening.
I did another full 180 degrees and then about 20 to 30 more degrees just for added bonus fun. Some skidding, some jostling with the wheel, a manic urge to hit the handbrake, these were all things that may or may not have happened. I guess that all you can hope to remember, you soil your psychic pants in the meantime and hopefully you're in one piece at the end.
When things settled down, I was off the road in about 2 feet of Maine snow on a very steep downward-sloping embankment orthogonal to the highway. I hadn't really hit anything, the front spoiler was a little dinged up, but there was no getting my car out under its own power. I got out of the car, up to my chalk-striped navy worsted thighs in snow--did I mention that wingtips can be some of the worst possible footwear for snowy environs?
This was just before everyone and their teenage kids had cell phones, so I was basically stranded until someone stopped. A Maine State Trooper came along after a fashion, called for a tow truck and then sped off. Apparently there were cars adrift all over.
The tow truck arrived about 20 minutes later and it was not, I repeat, not one of those modern numbers that look so efficient and helpful in the average AAA commercial. It was more of a 50's pickup truck with a large pipe mated to its rear chassis and then jacked up into the air. It lacked paint for the most part, the front cowling may have been some shade of red many faded years ago.
It will come as no suprise that the operators of said towing vehicle strongly resembled many of the less flattering stereotypes to which downeasterners find themselves commonly subjugated. Yes, there were overalls. No, they were not freshly pressed or washed. Yes, there was chewing tobacco, no this did not all end up with me having to squeal like a big--but the scenario did run through my mind really fast.
So here is me, knee deep in not the hoopla but two feet of snow in a suit with my car basically looking like it's Sputnik t-minus 10, pointed at the heavens for launch. There is a reasonable amount of chuckling at my predicament, an assessment of the situation, some clucking and limited planning for the extraction. As my car is being winched and shimmied back up to the roadside, Operator 2 stands beside me snickering and shaking his head. I could explode at any moment. He then turns and looks at me until I acknowledge his stare. In the straightest straight-man voice he says to me in a raspy yet nasal twang, "Having a Good One, Ain'tcha."
It really was the perfect thing to say at my expense, and to this day he gets all the cynical props I can muster. I had to laugh later when I was back on the road.
Having a Good One, Ain'tcha.
Today reminded me of that guy. The first drive in the RAID/0 array on my newly repaved and main development machine died today. Seagate Cheetah 15K, I should have gotten a third or fourth one and had RAID/5 or 0+1. Sigh. Them's the breaks. I didn't lose too much data, it's just the rebuilding headache. Jesus saves, I didn't.
Yes, today, I'm having a good one.
Postscript: When it came time to pay these fine gentleman I had only plastic. In my haste to get on the road, I had left Boston with about $6 in my pocket. Naturally the satellite linked credit card processor in their '57 Ford conversion was not working. In fact, it obviously didn't exist. So I offered them the $6 in cash, took their address down and promised to stop in and pay them on my return trip to Boston. I believe the term "city folk" or "city slickers" was sprinkled in with their disdain and dim regard that this would ever actually happen.
I did find their grimy little auto shop tucked off some unsigned side road outside K-port on the way back, and I did pay them double the charges in gratitude for their forebearance. I suprised the driver when I popped into their shop late on a wintery Friday, he was kicked back across a dark garage stall with--no lie--a fire burning in a 50-gallon drum in the entryway. How this worked, heating-wise, I haven't the slightest clue. He was surprised to see me, surprised that I was back to pay him, but not surprised enough to muster more than a single grunt that began and ended our conversation. Good times.