Patience

Patience is a virtue... And let me tell you something, one way or another in your lifetime, you WILL learn that sometimes patience is the only way.

I was driving today along an IH-10 Westbound feeder road near Orange, TX and I could see that traffic was backing up on the Interstate. It was, and had been raining and there was a light mist flying up off of the road as cars were cruising along. I was nearing an IH-10 exit ramp and I was watching the cars exiting so I could judge how to best merge when I noticed a nice full-size truck that didn't seem to be slowing down as fast as he should have been.

This was a really nice, white, full-size Chevy truck with dark tinted windows and expensive rims with low-profile tires. It was also loaded down with various household things in the back as if whoever was driving might be moving.

Anyway, this guy was just a little past his exit and still moving around 40 to 45 MPH and decided that he couldn't wait until the next exit because he was in too much of a hurry, so he decided to try to get off of the Interstate now. The only problem with that was the fact that there was a curb that was about 10 inches high or so where he tried to exit, and there was also a median and another 10 inch curb on the other side. His truck SLAMMED into the curb and jumped about 2 feet off of the ground and then SLAMMED again back onto the ground on the other side of the median. All of this happened directly in front of me, about 50 yards or so, and I was still moving but moving slowly as his truck aimlessly whizzed across the feeder road at about 25 MPH or so. It then SMASHED into yet another curb on the right side of the feeder road and people commenced passing him as if nothing had happened.

As I passed, I could see that his rear passenger tire was flat, one of his front fenders was badly damaged, his front bumper seemed to be hanging a bit low, and while it was actually happening, I noticed that things seemed to be flying out of the back of his truck. It all happened within the blink of an eye, so it might have been a lot worse that what I've discussed here. No matter how bad it was though, I do know that nobody was hurt in the ordeal because I watched the guy get out to assess the damage.

The moral of the story is that if the guy would have just been more patient, he'd still have a brand-new vehicle right now. Not to mention the fact that he put peoples' lives in danger by being careless and not thinking of consequences to his actions prior to taking those actions. Today, he learned the hard way that being impatient DOES NOT PAY!!!