"My Near Death Experience" or "So That's What WTF Stands For!"

Word to my kids. Be careful about what you think is a myth. State's Exhibit 1, "Black Ice". I've been hearing about this stuff for years and never believed it truly existed. It was folklore that ranked up there with UFOs, Yetis, Elvis sightings or the existence of a democratic congressman with an actual backbone.
For anyone fortunate enough not to have experienced (sunbelt denizens are exempt) the situation it goes something like this:
It is cold and dark (much like my sex life). There may be snow on the side of the road, however for all intents and purposes the road appears clean as a whistle or at most a little wet. You are on your way home from a meeting in Columbus, Ohio and the roads have been marvelous the whole way home. ODOT has had plows and salt trucks out on every square inch of roadway with the lone exception of Lake County. You are relaxed because you've hit the home stretch of your journey. WNCX has finally come out of their normal 2 hour commercial break and you are singing along to the mellow strains of "Simple Man" as you approach the Route 306 underpass. Traffic is moderate but not congested and thankfully you have entered that space between packs of cars and are traveling at more or less the speed limit.
"... and be simple kind of mmmmaaaaaaannnnnn..." when in the middle of "...aaaannnn..." you find yourself, for no apparent reason, on some deity's demented idea of an amusement park ride. This ride consists of, with absolutely no warning by the way, swerving, spinning and cursing, during which there is an adrenalin pounding jumble of steering wheel clenching, brake pumping, spinning in a crazed kaliedescope of tail lights and headlights all accompanied by terrorizing visions of car flipping, collisions with bridge abutments, vehicles or lawyers. Or all the above.
If you are lucky, your car will finally come to an abrupt halt, on the berm, facing the right way with no oncoming tractor trailers or freight trains. Also if you're lucky you will have had the forethought to leave your wife at home, knowing that had you not done so, your eardrums would now be useless lumps of cartilage or bone or whatever the hell they're made of, because the blood curdling screams would have shown up on a siesmograph in Bangkok. And if you're not so lucky?Well, I think we all know that one.
When my "thrill ride" concluded I was on the berm in a cloud of burning rubber, mist and/or dirt. The ODOT folks in the infinite wisdom of all bureaucratic governmental departments, in trying to save a few nanocents, had decided to wait until "the really bad stuff came down" before sending out the salt trucks. Ronnie Van Zant was still singing and the cars that had been behind me were all now heading for the Route 306 exit at roughly 3/4 of 1 mile per hour. Evidently the salt trucks are still being held in reserve as I heard that a semi hit a patch of black ice several hours later and closed off the west bound I90 exit ramp. Thanks loads.
After I crawled off at the next available exit I took Johnnycake Ridge the rest of the way home (no barrel of laughs either). When I had caught my breath and my heart rate had slowed to roughly normal I became angry. Did I blame myself? Did I blame ODOT? No, I blamed the lady that had called me to Columbus that day for what amounted to attempted homicide. As a matter of fact, when Sandy heard of my experience, she too became irate at the woman. She promptly called her and complained bitterly that she hadn't tried hard enough. In my pique, I called her myself and demanded that she be punished severely, and that the worst punishment I could think of would be to have connubial relations. Well, this lady is no fool. She immediately pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down as cruel and unusual, in the oft cited case of Womankind vs. Bob L, such a punishment. It was an 8-1 decision with the lone dissent coming from Clarence "is that a pubic hair in my Coke" Thomas. Justice Thomas opined that such treatment should be allowed in cases of terrorists and then, only after any enhanced waterboarding had failed.
Well, I better be going. For some reason the CIA wants to talk to me.

Love
Dad