It’s Called Babelfish

I haven’t blogged in a while, I guess I have just been too busy at work, and I don’t get much time at home before I knock out from the long day. 

The most exciting part of the week for me was yesterday, when I floated home, literally.  See, here we are sitting at work at quarter to five, and the rain is pouring down.  It had been pouring for a good 3 hours.  Thunder, lighting, the works.  As we left for the day, I wondered- how bad will the roads be.  Well, I turned the bend of my job, and looked ahead of me to see a small creek which had formed where the road used to be.  Panic stricken, I looked at my car, then at the water, prayed and slowly but carefully pushed my way through the creek.  There were Mac trucks on my right side and back, and they scared the shit out of me, as they plowed through, leaving my car to suck up all their water.  Well, we passed what I believed would be the worst of it, Boy was I wrong.  As we finished making the turn, I saw that no one else is moving.  At this point, it was about 5:45.  So I sat, on the only bit of dry land there was, and waited patiently, in hopes that maybe, it was just traffic that jammed up.  Finally realizing that something was terribly wrong I walked out of my car and looked ahead of me, only to find that a river had formed in front of us.  A river of more than 2 feet of water.  Now, I wa petrified.  My car cannot possibly pass that, I thought!  Let’s recap- I have a 2003 Toyota Matrix.  While it rides a little higher than a standard corolla, it most certainly is not an SUV or a truck.  I watch as the big Macs plummet into the water and swish their way to dry land-which technically isn’t too far from us, if you don’t count the river.  For those who live the Jersey area and travel to Jersey Gardens in Elizabeth, the road I speak of is McClellan St.-which is perpendicular to the road to Jersey Gardens and Ikea.  So we wait, and watch as a few brave souls in BMWs and Keas try to make it through.  Not knowing if they made it to the other side, or if they are sadly floating in our new lake. 

 After another hour, the traffic started moving again. I was confident that the worse may have passed, until I saw where the traffic was heading.  The cop was slowly directing us towards this river, forcing us to go through it, or spend the rest of the night on the only strip of dry road.  I felt my body trembling in fear now, my thoughts racing on the what ifs and the could bes.  I made the sign of the cross, as I started to work my way towards the river.  I saw two Mac trucks on my right side, who decided to cut me off while I try to tread, and a Ford Truck on my left with his high beams on coming towards me.  The only thing I could think was- Oh my god, I am going to buoy and flip.  Slowly I pressed on my accelerator, listening to the engine roar and feeling the vibration of those two trucks as they plummet through without any consideration of what could happen to me.  As I go through the river, I can see the water cover the hood of my car, and hear the swish of the water at my side doors.  I keep praying and singing “just keep swimming, just keep swimming” and I continued to press the accelerator.  It felt like an eternity, like I would never get out, and then, it was over, my car was back on dry land and I felt a tear drop on the side of my face.  For a moment, I heard cheering from the back seat, a sweet hurray, and then I moved on.  I looked around me to see about 15 cars that had not made it through the ordeal, and were sitting abandoned on the road side, waiting for help.  And one car that was floating, like the buoy I thought I would be, which we had to gear around in order to get out.  I smiled proudly and patted the dashboard on my vehicle, “Good nunuta,”  Nuna Uta is arabic for little kitten.  My little kitten had made it through another rough season of water and snow, and came up roaring in satisfaction.  I made it home at around 7:30- tired, wet and ready for bed.  Mother nature had tried to tackle me down, but I had surpassed the worst, and I was happy.