Editorial
Front Page - Friday, September 3, 2010
Read all about it ...
Why does the fattest bug hit the middle of the windshield??
Pettus L. Read
?It was one of those late summer nights when the humidity was finally taking a turn to the better and a full Grain moon had risen just over our Tennessee hills as I pulled from the local service station to head home.
During my stop at the station’s gas pump for E85 fuel, and as it chugged slowly, pumping the fuel into my flex fuel car, I had taken the time to clean every inch of my windshield from a long day of driving. The car’s front glass now glistened in the moonlight, and I even felt like the car drove better due to being able to see so clearly across the hood of my car pointed in the direction of home. I usually feel the same way when I get the entire car washed. The vehicle just seems like it operates better clean than it does with grime on it. Of course, heading home also makes things better, and I do like full moons on a summer night – not that I’m one of those who gets strange or anything.
After enjoying the night’s final leg of the drive along with the rays of moonlight coming down for about a mile, out of nowhere a flying bug the size of a small aircraft decided to commit suicide right in the middle on the driver’s side of my freshly cleaned windshield.
That bug must have just been making a return trip from the Gulf Coast and been helping BP suck up the oil leakage, because when it hit my clean glass, there was enough grease that splattered out to have greased the tracks for the CSX Rail lines from here to St. Louis. I went from an evening view of bliss to trying to look through a vision of “who soaped the windows at Halloween.” There was no way to see around the innards of that escapee from Jurassic Park.
Attempting to keep my eye on the centerline, I did what any experienced driver would do, but probably should not have done, and hit the windshield washer button. Now my entire windshield resembled a misguided modern art painting, and with each swipe of the wiper arm, the bug goo became even gooier.
The centerline now was even becoming a little squiggly and the wiper blades were making a noise that sounded something like “thump, thump, thump,” and “squeeeeeak.” All I knew to do was to keep pumping the washer fluid to the scene of the crime and hope that the bug had not been eating an insoluble substance of some type.
?As I pumped the washer fluid button frantically, I heard a sound no one wants to hear during a bug cleansing operation of this type. The windshield washer reservoir was running dry and it was taking its final breaths. With the gasp of a winded runner, the last drop of blue washer fluid landed on the bug innards to no avail. The Kamikaze bug had taken me out, causing me to coast to the side of the road and delaying the final miles home. Who would have ever thought a bug could take out today’s modern automobiles with one flight of desperation.
However, it was not going to stop me from my appointed round! (I heard that from the Post Office and thought it worked pretty well here.)
In the cup holder of my car I had left a half-full cup of cold drink from the day’s driving. The ice had melted, making what was left all watery, and the only liquid I had available at the moment. With the wipers going and making their strange sound, I poured the leftover cold drink slowly over the windshield. Like one of those “As Seen On TV” ads, the bug guts melted off and the wipers changed their tune to a happier note, if that could be possible. The windshield wasn’t perfect, but clear enough to let the moonlight back through and for me to drive on home, bug or no bug.
Driving into my drive, I decided this little adventure had a moral just like any story. Life is just like your car’s windshield.
Many days, your drive down life’s highway is clear as can be and the sunlight will seem to be neverending, but there is usually a bug out there somewhere that will come on the scene and hit you right where you are looking. Now, that bug was also having a pretty good day until you came along. Just remember to try to avoid the bugs, and those you can’t, work around them until you can see a little bit clearer of what life has in store for you.
Life is full of bug innards, but there are also a lot of moonbeams as well just waiting to make your view of life more enjoyable.
Pettus L. Read is Director of Communications for the Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation.? He may be contacted by e-mail at pread@tfbf.com
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