The Time (one of many) That I Scared Myself Senseless For No Reason

Yes, I love being a writer. I love thinking up stories and scenarios and one of my favorite sayings is, “If the story gets boring, add a dead body.” This thing I love can also be my biggest enemy as well. Here’s a “fer instance”:

I have a friend who lives about 15 miles from me. There are two ways to her house. One is down a very busy four lane highway with tons (and I mean over 20) traffic lights which seem to always be red. We don’t have anyone smart enough here in my city to time the lights so that you can get through more than one at a time, so just as you get up to speed, boom, you have to stop again.

The other way to my friend’s house entails back roads and exactly two traffic lights. This road, called Quintette Road, which my son calls long, lonely Quintette since he had to take it about once a week his junior year in high school in the night is very long- about eleven miles. AND this road is dark with a capital D-A-R-K.

This one night in particular, I stayed at my friend’s way past midnight and one of the reasons was that it was pouring rain and I was waiting for it to stop. Once we saw Noah rowing past her front window, I decided to head home since it clearly was going to rain forever. Debated with myself about which way to take. Decided on Quintette since it would be faster.

Here comes the crazy part. As I drove down this long, lonely, dark road in the torrential rain, the old writer brain kicked in. First, I imagined a wreck that would hold up what little traffic was on the two lane road at that time of night and that I wouldn’t get home for hours. When the road got less populated and I was virtually alone, I imagined some monsters in the woods who kept peeking out at me- I swear I could see red eyes off to the side of the road.

Then, when I caught my breath from those thoughts and got near the river crossing, I dreamed up a scenario that a car coming toward me spun out and blocked me from going anywhere and that the driver and his accomplice hopped out, grabbed me and dragged me into the woods for nefarious purposes. I imagined my body wouldn’t be found for weeks in the soggy, muddy leaves.

By now, I was in the middle of the woods, near the place where a local guy keeps his fighting roosters and also near the gun range. More scenarios came rushing in about fighting poultry and firearms and I was perilously close to a heart attack.

Finally, just as I thought my heart would explode in my chest, I came back into civilization. I vowed never to take Quintette in the rain after midnight again- you know, just in case. I mean, really, any of these things could happen, right?

Yep, being a writer can be a scary thing.