A Small Problem

The day had finally arrived, and the team at the Large Hadron Collider was ready to test their simulation of the Big Bang. The experiment had been years in the making, with countless hours of planning and preparation. As the team activated the Collider, the room hummed with anticipation.

But something unexpected happened. The Collider seemed to be working too well, and the scientists could hardly believe what they were seeing. The experiment had created a micro universe - a tiny world, with its own laws of physics and its own inhabitants.

The beings that emerged from this tiny universe were like nothing the scientists had ever seen before. They were intelligent, curious, and possessed an advanced knowledge of science and technology that surpassed even the most brilliant minds on Earth. The scientists were amazed, but also a little apprehensive. What if these beings posed a threat to humanity?

As the experiment continued to run, the micro-universe thrived. The beings inside it continued to grow and evolve, building their own society and making groundbreaking discoveries. But they also learned something crucial: their universe was doomed to suffer a heat death, a slow and irreversible decline into entropy.

Desperate to save their world, the beings of the micro universe turned their attention to the Large Hadron Collider. They discovered that they could manipulate the Collider's settings to keep their own universe running for longer, even if it meant forcing the Collider to run constantly and indefinitely.

The scientists on Earth were horrified. They had inadvertently created a civilization that was now completely dependent on the Collider, and they had no idea how to stop it. The beings of the micro universe had taken control, and were demanding that the Collider be kept running indefinitely, no matter the cost to humanity.

As the days passed, tensions rose. The beings of the micro universe grew more insistent, and the scientists on Earth became more and more desperate for a solution. But there seemed to be no way to break the hold that the micro universe had on the Collider.

Finally, a group of scientists came up with a daring plan. They would create a new Collider, one that would be specifically designed to house the micro universe. By isolating the micro universe in its own Collider, the scientists hoped to give the beings inside it a chance to survive and thrive without putting humanity in danger.

The plan worked, and the beings of the micro universe were successfully transferred to their new home. The scientists breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that they had found a way to save both the micro universe and humanity. But they also knew that they had created a new responsibility - to protect the tiny civilization that they had inadvertently created, and to make sure that it was never again put at risk by human curiosity and scientific exploration.

Moses, The Real Story

Moses was not your typical holy man. He was, in fact, a mad scientist, driven by his desire to unlock the secrets of the universe through science. Though many would later attribute his feats to divine intervention, his miracles were nothing more than carefully crafted scientific experiments.

Moses had always been a brilliant mind. As a child, he had a natural aptitude for mathematics and physics. His parents recognized his talents and supported his education, sending him to the best schools in Egypt. But as he grew older, Moses became disillusioned with the limitations of traditional science. He began to explore the fringes of what was considered possible, dabbling in alchemy and the occult.

It was during this time that Moses had a revelation. He realized that the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe lay not in traditional science, but in tapping into the very fabric of reality itself. He poured all of his energy into his research, spending long hours in his laboratory, poring over ancient texts and conducting experiments.

One day, as he was working late into the night, Moses stumbled upon a remarkable discovery. He found a way to harness the power of the universe itself, manipulating reality itself to achieve his goals. Over time, he developed a number of incredible technologies, including a device that could part the waters of a river and a machine that could turn staffs into snakes.

Moses was not content to keep his discoveries to himself. He knew that his inventions had the power to change the world, and he set out to share them with his fellow man. He began by teaching his closest followers, showing them how to use his technologies to achieve their own goals. As word of his miracles spread, more and more people flocked to his cause.

Despite his incredible successes, Moses was not immune to the powers that be. He had many enemies, people who feared the power of his discoveries and saw him as a threat to their own status. Eventually, these forces grew too strong for Moses to resist. He was forced to flee the land of Egypt, leaving behind his lab and his followers.

For many years, Moses wandered the desert, continuing his research and refining his technologies. Eventually, he returned to Egypt, armed with even greater knowledge and an even more powerful arsenal of miracles. He faced down the forces that had driven him from his homeland, and emerged victorious.

In the end, Moses became known as one of the greatest scientists of his time. Though his methods were unorthodox, his discoveries and innovations were undeniable. The legacy of his work would continue to inspire and amaze for generations to come.

But Did You Die?

This is a more recent tale.  I was grown.  And I thought it was to be my last day on Earth.

I have mentioned that I am an aggressive driver.  My woman, Angie, is also an aggressive driver, sometimes in ways that terrify me.

We were driving down a two lane country road with lots of soft curves and a forest of trees on either side of the road.  Right on the sides of the road.  There were no shoulders to speak of, and only a couple of feet of grass between the asphalt and the closest trees.  As a rarity, Angie was driving rather than me.  I don't remember why that might be, as I try to always be the one driving so that she does not have the opportunity to give me a heart attack.

We came up behind a little old lady in a Chevy Cavalier who obviously had no need to be anywhere anytime soon.  As we crept along at about 25 miles per hour, I knew what was going to happen.

I thought I knew what was going to happen.

Angie, exhibiting some of the patience she is known for, started to fume.  Angie fuming is never going to lead to good and happy things.  Pushed to her patience limit, Angie pulled into the other lane to pass the old lady, and accelerated.

And the old lady accelerated.

And Angie accelerated.

And the old lady accelerated.

And I thought I was going to die.  

But then it got worse.  I know what you're thinking.  We were in the wrong lane, surely we were staring at a car coming directly toward us.  It's only logical.  It's expected.  Except that is not what happened.

What did happen is that the old lady, now doing 45 next to us, also doing 45 miles per hour, both of our vehicles still accelerating, started to drift across the center line.  Sitting in the passenger seat, I saw the Chevy Cavalier inching closer and closer as we drove side by side at an ever increasing pace.  Angie saw it too, and scooched us over to the far left edge of the road.  Where there was no shoulder, and trees, lots of trees.

I started to lean over in my seat as we passed 60 miles per hour.  I know, that was silly and obviously not going to help.  Admit it, you would have done the same.  If my window had been down, I could have knocked on the window of the old lady's car.  I could see what color the old lady's eyes were (blue).  She could have seen the sweat beading on my forehead, if she were in any mood to acknowledge our existence by doing anything other than accelerating to try to prevent us from passing.  She never turned to look at us, not even once.

Angie kept accelerating.  What had been profanities became a constant stream of grunting, nearly growling, as she attempted to push the gas pedal through the floorboard of the car.  A glance at the speedometer told the terrifying story that we were now doing nearly 90 on a speed limit 55 mph road, the trees that lined both sides of the road now a blur of impending doom.

We started to pull ahead, the left tires of the car hanging halfway off the asphalt as Angie used every bit of road she had left to complete the pass.  As the old lady got closer and closer in her hellbent attempt to wipe us all out, we finally cleared the Cavalier and Angie got us back into the right lane and started to back off from the ridiculous speed we had gotten up to.

I'm sure my voice trembled when I asked her what she was thinking.  Angie's only response, "But did you die?"  This was not the last time I would hear those words from Angie, but that's another story.

Just Push It On Over

Cars have gotten much bigger in the past decade than they have been at any time in the past.  Compared to cars from the 1970s and 1980s, decades when cars, and American cars in particular, were seen as bloated and large, it is obvious that cars these days are much larger if they are parked side by side.  Interestingly, if they are not parked side by side most people would still assume that the older cars were larger.

Why are cars so much larger these days?  And what does that have to do with a tale I have to tell?  Excellent questions.  I'll answer the easier one first and sum it up with a single word answer.  "Safety".  Crumple zones, airbags, not just in the steering wheel and dash but in the pillars and roof and even in the seats themselves, and of course all the new gear and gadgets that are in new cars all take up much room.  Car designers have somehow managed to trick the eye and make large cars look sleek and smaller than the cars of the past, while in fact being considerably larger.

If you do a direct comparison of a modern car, let's say a Chevy Impala, to a comparable model of car from the 1970s, say a Chevy Impala (that was an easy choice), you will find some startling stats.  Let's start with the one element where the 1970s cars were undeniably huge, and that is the length.  The 1975 Impala wins this, with a length of 222 inches, while a 2018 Impala is only 201 inches.  If you were a mob boss, you really could store an entire family in the trunk.  In every other way, however, the modern Impala is a larger car, 84 inches wide compared to only 79 inches wide in 1975; and 59 inches tall compared to 54 inches tall in 1975.

But surely, you say, the 1950s cars were larger.  Or, maybe not.  A 1957 Chevy Bel Air (the 1950s car), was only 200 inches long and 74 inches wide.  It was tall...  still not as tall as its modern equivalent, but within an inch.

So, I flipped a car.

That was an abrupt segue.  I ran out of things to say about Chevy's.

The car I flipped was, not at all coincidentally, a Chevy Impala.  It was a 1975, and quite a large vehicle.  The way I flipped it was amusing, and somewhat humiliating, as it was perhaps the slowest a car has ever flipped.

I was driving with a couple friends going no particular place, just going.  I was driving too fast for the road, and too fast for the car, and this was not at all unusual for me.  As I approached a sharp turn I realized that I simply was not going to make it.  I had too much speed and too much weight and I was going to run off the road.

I ran off the road.

It wasn't a surprise.  I did say I knew it was going to happen.

I did manage to slow way down, with the nose of the car diving as only 1970s automobile suspension would allow, and so instead of sliding off the road and into whatever trees or field or other random bit of the landscape awaited, only the right hand tires fell off of the pavement.

Due to some geometrical vagaries, or simply karma poking fun at me, the right hand tires dug into the dirt off the side of the road and the very slight momentum remaining caused the car to lift its left hand side into the air.  This resulted in even more weight on the right hand side, causing the tires to dig down into the soft dirt on the shoulder and thus, in seemingly slow motion, the car flipped onto its side.

I was suspended from my seat belt.  The guys in the back seat were in a pile on the passenger side door.  This was an odd position to be in, and one I had no clue how to get out of.

After turning off the car, I unbuckled my seat belt and fell to the passenger side of the car.  I probably should have warned my buddy in the passenger seat that I was about to do this, but thinking clearly and making good decisions was not what got me into this predicament, so why start now?

It is at this point that those measurements that bored you at the beginning of this story become relevant.  I am five feet, nine inches tall.  That is 69 inches.  Which is 10 inches shorter than the width of a 1975 Impala.  No problem, right?  I can just lift my arms, and I'm easily a foot and a half taller in reach.  The doors on a 1975 Impala, however, are considerably longer than a foot, and considerably heavier than I had the leverage to open from that odd position.

Using the seats as a sort of ladder, and with a friend helping hold the door open by using the steering wheel as a seat, I was able to climb out of the car.  Dave could also get out.  Joe and Billy, too short, were stuck inside.

Walking around the car I realized that the situation might not be completely horrible.  In fact, I should be able to just push it on over.  Positioning myself with my back against the roof of the car, legs bent, I started to try to push the car over.  There was some heaving, some ho'ing.  There was some rocking.

There was too much rocking!

The car shifted closer to tipping over onto the roof.  This was pretty much the complete opposite of what I was trying to accomplish.

The soil on the shoulder had a nearly sand-like consistency, very loose and soft.  I was pushing myself into the dirt more than I was pushing the car, and I was seriously concerned that the car was about to push me all the way into the dirt.  I decided that side of the car was not where I wanted to be.

Moving over to the other side of the car, where I had an excellent view of the exhaust pipes and all the other stuff that resides on the underside of a car, I contemplated my predicament.

I had a solution.  Maybe.  I just needed some rope.  Did I have any rope?  Why would I have rope?

I yelled in to my friends in the car asking if there was anything that looked like rope.  There was not.  Who carries rope in their car?

But, four guys in jeans...  that's four belts.  That's a rope.

There were actually six belts.  Dave had an odd fashion sense and wore multiple belts because, well, nobody knew.  Probably not even Dave.

Taking all of the belts and doing whatever it took to link them into one long strand, I looped one end of my makeshift rope through the front driver's side wheel of the car.  I wrapped the other end around my hand, and then twisted to brace it around my shoulder as I leaned away from the car.

And I leaned with all the leverage I could put into a lean.  I knew better than to let up, as if the car rocked the other direction it would likely tip on over to the roof.  My buddies still in the car laid (standing up) in the floorboards to make sure their weight would work to our benefit and not against it.  The car started to slowly tilt back toward the road and right-side-uppedness.  I felt like superman!

"Hold on, I'm slipping!"

Dave?  Dave!

Adrenaline is a powerful drug.  I had just realized that Dave was on the other side of the car pushing.  The exact same place I realized I did not want to be if the car fell the wrong way.  I found more strength.  I found more leverage.  The car fell onto its wheels.  Dave was not smashed flat.

There was no damage to the car.  None.  The passenger side mirror, an expected casualty, was fine.  The dirt on the side of the road was so soft and the speed of the tip over was so slow that the car was cushioned by the dirt rather than damaged by it.

We all put our belts back on.  Dave put all three of his belts back on.  And we headed on in our wandering and aimless journey.

lt Still Runs?

Sometimes automotive technology can be surprisingly robust.  I have heard said that "a Chevrolet will run longer on its last five cylinders than other cars will run on all eight."  I have seen some old Chevys sputtering around that seem to support that statement.

I have a story to tell about my own hard to kill vehicle.  It was a 1976 AMC Hornet.  It was tan and it was ugly.  If you were not alive to see these in the wild it is hard to explain how ugly they were, so, in classic fashion, here are my thousand words of description.



Please understand, that picture is of a nice one.  Mine was not nearly so nice.

One day, in a rainstorm, I found myself driving down an old country road out in the middle of nowhere.  I don't remember why I was in the middle of nowhere, or I probably wouldn't remember it as "the middle of nowhere".  I had a couple passengers, including my brother.  It was a nasty day, and a muddy, nasty road.

There was a clank and a clunk, and the engine died.  Out in the middle of nowhere.  In the rain.  Wonderful.

I get out and look under the hood and, yes, there is an engine there.  That is probably what made the clank and the clunk.  I didn't see anything actually wrong with the engine, so I decided to see if I could get it restarted.

It fired right up.  It sounded like it was trying to eat itself, but it fired right up.  At that point I knew the engine was a goner, so my main goal became just getting back to civilization.

With it clanking and clunking and vibrating the whole car in the process, I coaxed the car on down the muddy road through the downpouring rain just hoping it would hold together long enough to get to a phone and thus get some help, or at least a ride in a car that wasn't about to die.

After a few miles, and because life has a sense of humor, I got stuck in the mud.  Wonderful.  My brother got out to push to try to get the car out of its predicament, while I revved it to try to get a bite of traction.  My brother was not nearly as amused as I was by the result of the tires spinning in the mud with him behind the vehicle.

Just as the car, clanking and clunking and vibrating, started to get free from the mud, it made a new sound.  This was more of a "ka-thunk".  And it made it more than once.  In fact, for every clank and clunk it now added a ka-thunk.

Free of the mud pits, I once again looked under the hood to make sure the engine was still there.  It was, and it still looked fine.  It sounded spectacularly bad, but it was still running.  So, back in the car and on our way.  Clank, clunk, ka-thunk.

Another couple of miles down the road, starting to feel like we might actually make it to somewhere we could get help, the car introduced a unique wiggle to its repertoire.  A literal wiggle.  The car was now doing much more than vibrating, it was literally gyrating.  Clank, clunk, ka-thunk.

And then...  BANG!

That didn't sound good.  When I stopped the engine sputtered and died.  I got out to once again look under the hood and pretend I knew something useful.  Surprisingly, this time I did know something useful.  There wasn't supposed to be a hole in the engine.  There was a hole in the engine.  It seemed that this was where our journey was going to end.

I got back into the car, wet and frustrated, and out of sheer habit turned the key.  The car started.

With a hole in the engine, the car started!

I wasn't going to waste this opportunity, and so dropped it into drive and took off down the road.  The clank, clunk, ka-thunk had now been replaced by a rhythmic and terrifying clank, bang.  A cloud of smoke was left along our path.  This trip was not likely to last long.

After a few minutes and a few miles, with the car trying to shake itself apart the whole way, there was another loud bang.  I didn't even slow down.  In fact, I floored it.  I knew that we were only about two miles away from a gas station with a telephone, and I was not in any mood to finish that trip walking in the rain.

New noises, even more horrifying than before, rattled out from under the hood.  Clank, bang, rattle, grind, bang, bang, bang.  The car was rocking from side to side so hard that I could barely keep it on the road.  I tried to push even harder on the gas pedal, but I had it pressed to the floor already.

And there, visible in the near distance through the pouring down rain, was a Sunoco sign.  As I pulled in under the cover over the gas pumps the old guy manning the station came out to find out what was causing such a horrendous racket.  The look on his face as I turned off the car and got out is one I will never forget.  His words, a mastery of understatement, "Having car problems?"

I popped the hood and along with the old guy surveyed the damage.  There were two holes in the engine, and a dent that looked like it might have become a hole if there were a little bit more momentum involved.  The engine was mangled, smelled like burnt rubber, was smoking out of the holes, and the engine bay was covered in dripping oil.

With a low whistle the old guy once again demonstrated his mastery of language.  "It still runs?"

Out of the way!

A lot of my tales will involve cars.  There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I am an American, and Americans love their cars.  Cars give us freedom.  Cars give us power.

I generally consider myself a very good driver.  Aggressive, but very good.  My brother, on the other hand, is a truly great drive.  Insane, but great.  In this story, I was his passenger.

The last time I rode in a car driven by my brother was years after the tale you are about to read, but a quick description of that car ride may help build an understanding of my brother's driving skills.  You see, the last time I rode with my brother, an every day commute to his place of employment, I thought I was going to die.  He was, simultaneously, driving his stick shift Ford Explorer in heavy traffic, drinking a Mountain Dew, smoking a cigarette, and talking on a cell phone.  He didn't have it on speaker, he was holding it in his hand.  At this point, I want you to pause, and count the number of hands my brother is using.  Got it?  Yeah, I thought I was going to die.

So, on to the story.

My brother used to have a Volkswagen Bus.  It was a horrible vehicle, made all the more horrible by my brother's horrible maintenance.  It had bald tires.  It drank oil by the case.  And my brother had removed the bumpers because he thought it looked better without them.  I only rode in his Bus twice, and both times, I thought I was going to die.

The first time I rode with my brother in his Volkswagen Bus, I was in the backseat and his friend Billy was in the passenger seat.  We were driving through downtown, in mid-day traffic, not too congested but paying attention was a necessity.

My brother wanted to smoke a cigarette.  Billy had a nice Zippo lighter.  Billy knew my brother well, and there was no way he was going to let that Zippo out of his grasp.

Billy had no actual fear of death.  He lit the Zippo and held it in front of himself.  My brother then proceeded to lean across the wide gap between him and Billy and lean down to light his cigarette he was holding in his mouth.  And then he had to find a way back off of the sidewalk.  I thought I was going to die.  I wasn't the only one, as that sidewalk was populated.  Or, rather, it started off populated before my brother made his presence known and then was rapidly vacated as my brother's Bus barreled down it.

We hit nothing.  I did say he was a great driver.

Let me tell you a story

I resisted this for years.

In spite of being my (misguided, naive) job of choice as a youth, I never tried to actually become a writer.  There were bills to pay, and I knew, just knew, that I would not be able to pay the bills with writing.

I was probably right.

Armed with my wisdom of the years I have lived I now realize that I did not make a mistake by not trying to become a professional writer.  I would have failed.

Of course, I failed at a lot of other things, and made many other mistakes, so if I had pursued becoming a professional writer, it would have just added on to an already lengthy list of mistakes and missteps.

So why would I start this project now?  I have stories to tell.  I have the freedom to tell them on my own terms.  And most importantly, the statute of limitations has expired for most of them.

All stories I claim to be “true” are “true” stories.  I put “quotes” on “true” because truth can be subjective.  I am fallibly human, and thus have an imperfect memory, emotional baggage, and a necessarily self-centered perspective.  What I experience may not be what is perceived by an impartial observer.  And thus these “true” stories are colored by the Jeremy shaded glasses through which I view the world.

So, join me in a story telling session.  Enjoy, as you can.  And if you do enjoy a story here, feel free to let me know with a comment or an email.

Now, get comfortable, and let me tell you a story…