Life in the fast lane

Just when I thought things were looking up, I figured I was safe to go out of the house heading somewhere other than work this weekend. So I spent the better part of yesterday doing the rounds of various fabric outlets, spending far more than I should have on some beautiful materials which will someday be turned into something equally beautiful. As if lugging a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff around wasn't enough to test my back out, I decided to really push my luck and play with my niece.

She's two, but she's about the size of the average four year old, a mini giant who will one day be a seriously tall one. Imagine a slightly less coherent but far more opinionated Dora the Explorer, and you're getting pretty close to the hyperactive bundle of energy that my brother helped bring into this world. Ever the optimist, I thought I'd be able to manage some of our usual games - the catch and spin, the whizzy dizzy, the throw over the shoulder, the threaten to throw in the bin. It was only the last one that made me certain it probably wasn't one of my better ideas. But there's no easy way out when your arms are full of squirming, shrieking little girl and you're standing on concrete. Not like the moment when you first began to doubt your own wisdom and simply made it more fun by dropping her on the conveniently located bed.

Not content with that, I headed out and about today, driving to various locations around town. The true lightening bolt moment of the day came as I was driving on the Ring Road, along one of the three lane stretches. Driving down the left lane, I noticed signs telling me to merge right. Checking the mirrors, I waited for a speeding car to pass me, then moved over at about the same time as the car in front of me pulled in front of the speeder. Funny, it was kind of like it happens in the movies - slow motion, obvious what the next step would be at every stage. Rather than braking, the speeder began to shift into the right lane. They didn't check their mirrors, or look out their window, even, and didn't see the car that was already in that lane until it was almost too late. With bare millimetres between the two cars, they both suddenly became aware of what was going on. The car already in the right lane swerved a little away, but the speeder, as they had done all along, completely over reacted. Braking hard and wrenching left, the driver lost control of their car. Smoke was screaming from the locked wheels as they skidded and spun across my lane and the left lane which had not yet ended. By the time they reached the emergency lane, they were facing the wrong way and started to cross back into the left lane before coming to a stop, at last.

You can imagine what braking from 100 in a hurry did to my back. Even the adrenaline kick from being so close to potential serious danger didn't stop it hurting as I watched the speeder once again getting back up to and then beyond the speed limit. The few things that I had to get at the supermarket were almost the end of me, or that's how it felt. I've been back in the horizontal position on the couch again since I got home. The pinging sensation that I felt when I got up earlier tonight make me think I'm still going to be sore tomorrow. The cars avoided damage, but I apparently did not. The car that had sparked all the drama in the first place probably hadn't even noticed what was going on, disappearing around a bend before the speeder had even finished spinning.