Road Rage..or something like it

I luv when you have a weekend that is so interesting it makes the next Monday feel like a Friday. So maybe I should explain. So I went down to Columbia to help a friend with her A/C, did that, then hung out at the pool all day long, yep, burned again. I will be moving soon so a brotha should try and find a place to live, so I went around Columbia looking for houses and townhomes, grown-up life as they call it. It was a beautiful Saturday and very hot. Many people call Columbia,SC the "armpit" of the South. I can see why. You walk outside and instantly these little beads of sweat appear on your forehead. Found some cool houses then hung out at Barnes & Noble for a bit. Let me ask you a question. I saw a book there called "hacking for dummies." Hacking is a crime and now we have books teaching us how to commit crimes. Great. I was rather amused. Left Barnes $ Noble and went to meet someone for dinner. Of course I didn't have a top on my Jeep and surely it begins to rain, we get soaked. Pull into a hospital parking garage (haha) for about an hour or so, then head out, drop her off, then head home. (2 hours away.) Here is where the story gets weird.

If anything weird is going to happen on the road, it's going to happen to me. I believe in my heart that God has ordained me for roadside ministry. It is so fun and very amusing. So I'm travelling down Interstate 20 around 12:30 AM. As I am leaving out of Richland County, I see brake lights flashing ahead. And yes there is a traffic jam. STOP THE TAPE. This is not your everyday traffic jam. Let me define...TRAFFIC JAM - two cars in both lanes of I-20 completely stopped and parked sideways with one truck trying to go between them in a frantic maneuver. So as I pull up on this scene, all I can hear is..."get her out, she's drunk, get her out!!!" This is all coming from a woman who is standing in front of this truck. A few people are yelling at me and commanding me to park my car in the road, similar to theirs, so this woman cannot leave the scene. I oblige. So now there is no real way to get through I-20. (during all this, I got the feeling that this woman in the frantic truck has probably hit someone and is now trying to flee from the scene.)

As the frantic woman in the truck realizes there is nowhere for her to go, I see terror in her eyes. On her driver's side, there is a man screaming at her, "GET OUT!" In front of her, there is a woman screaming at her, "GET OUT of the car." So I figured, well they are all screaming at her, I'll approach in nice guy fashion. "Mam, please step out the car, we are trying to help you." Ummm. Nice guy fashion does not help either and she is gearing up to run over the woman in front of her. We then scream at the woman in front of the truck, "Move, she is going to run over you!" The woman does not move. The frantic woman in the truck gears into reverse and stomps the gas to reverse into oncoming traffic, almost taking out an SUV in her path. I try and chase her on foot, not a great idea. I could hear cars screeching off the road and into the grass. I returned to my Jeep and waited on her to come back by. Sure enough, she comes zooming by.

So I become a policeman for the night and chase her. I followed her for around 10 miles or so. She takes an exit in Camden and I call the hwy. patrol to ask them if I should continue to follow her or let her go. They ask for her tag number. Eventually she pulls into a police station and about 5 police cars meet her there. I pull in shortly after.

So you're probably wondering what in the world. As was I. Troopers arrive and ask us questions for about 45 minutes. The woman comes over to my Jeep to see me. I introduce myself and we begin to talk about what happen. Her name is Linda. Linda was not drunk at all and was in a very normal state of mind at this point. Apparently she dosed off on the road and swerved. She may have swerved near someone and they then assumed she was drunk. Road rage probably kicked in and they get help from another driver on the road. So they corner her and slow her down. Linda probably didn't realize what she had done, (the swerve.) Well all she knew was there were about 4 white people trying to get into her truck. She said there was no way she was going to let them in. She told the police that I was really nice, but she didn't know whether I was "with" the other "people" or not. Haha. She told me she was going to protect herself at all costs, even it meant running over the lady standing in front of her.

So to sum up the story, I stayed in Camden for a few hours and ended up having an awesome conversation with Linda and her fiance, who came in later. We had a great talk about the Lord, sin, and about the end of the world. The Lord may not cause traffic jams, but He does know how to use them.

I finally made it home around 4AM, extremely tired. I luv interesting weekends.

What I learned this weekend: I like interesting people, challenging conversations, and interstates.

Anybody up for a road trip? :)