More Interstate Angst

So today as I was driving home minding my own business, a guy in a big green Dodge pickup in front of me apparently had forgotten the first and most vital rule of hauling anything in the bed of a truck: tie it down. I was letting my parents know I was on the way home when I had to yell and throw down the cell to swerve.

A queen or king-sized box springs and at least part of the metal bed frame the green Dodge genius had used to try to hold it down with blew out of his back end, spiraled up into the air, crashed into the middle of the two lanes of the west-bound interstate, and caused all manner of swerving and problems. Fortunately, nobody was immediately behind him. I was one of the closest, and I was probably four car lengths behind, so I had plenty of time to evade the flying mattress parts, but it was a scary moment. I wasn't at all sure the thing wasn't going to stay airborne and crash through my windshield for a few minutes, and then when it finally touched down, it sort of went end-over-end, and I wasn't sure where everybody else was going to go.

The metal bits were like shrapnel, and I think one lady might have run over some of it. I couldn't tell what happened. I just swerved left into my part of the median and kept going. There was no place to stop, and it was a good place to get run over by the 60 mph traffic. I hope there were no big accidents after I made it through, but I'm going to be surprised if there weren't. After I cleared it, the box springs were laying in the other lane mostly obstructing it and the five o'clock rush hadn't quite gotten started. The guy in the truck took an off-ramp, so hopefully he was going back to clean up his mess. Maybe next time he puts something in the back of his truck, he'll also tie it down.