Feeling 10-feet-tall and bulletproof is not reserved only for the young. This past weekend a Six Nations man did me the biggest favour anyone could have by calling me up on texting while driving.
I was on Third Line road on my way to cover a game this weekend and thought I was alone on the road, so I went to my smartphone to check the game time. After all, I have been driving for a very long time and thought I was in no danger at all. Bullet proof.
Even after counselling others never to text and drive, that advice was for others. I was OK. Although I usually pull over to answer the phone or do whatever, as I said, I figured I was alone on the road and was not endangering anyone else.
That was not true. Looking at my iPhone, I had drifted into the other lane just as a black pickup was pulling out to pass me. I almost cut him off into a ditch.
“What the —- are you doing?” said a justifiably angry man who had pulled over up the road to give me an earful, or maybe more. I stopped to apologize to him and he went off on me telling me he had his kids in the truck with him. “Are you stupid or what?” he said, and I had to agree with him.
After several apologies, I was back on the road, feeling like a self-absorbed idiot, promising myself and the man I very nearly run off the road, it would never happen again.
I never got his name, but he was justified in his anger. After enduring the verbal tongue-lashing, I began to think about how lucky I was not to have caused serious injury or worse. I thought about it all weekend.
I want to publicly thank that guy for waking me up to my own mortality and that of innocent drivers, passengers and pedestrians around me.
I write this in hopes that someone reading it will relate to how easy and how quickly one can find themselves before the Creator saying, what the hell happened? Putting my own life in danger is bad enough, but not considering the innocent victims of my stupidity is inexcusable.
To whoever that was on Third line road that day, thank you.
