I've got big balls

I'm not exaggerating when I say I've never driven a car as big as Nadine's big-ass Mercedes, the one I told you about here, so it shouldn't have startled me nearly as much as it did when I hit the curb while making a sharp turn as I raced Nadine to the airport last Friday. She was late, as usual.

I'd asked her the night before, what time do you need me to be at your place, and she'd replied, after two minutes of extemporaneous rambling, 3:45. Then she called me at 3:00, in a panic, demanding to know where I was, as her plane was taking off in one hour. So there was that.

Then there was the two vodkas and cranberry she'd consumed, obliging me to take the wheel instead of her.

Oh, and it was raining, did I mention? Not just raining raining, but pouring. The kind of rain that never happens in California, but for once each year on the day you are desperately needed to drive your friend to the airport.

As I raced up 87 I prayed that all the drivers surrounding me, idiots on their best days, would be slowed down by their terror of rain. If you're like me and have had your share of driving through six inches of snow, or skidding into a ditch during a blizzard, or having to abandon your car and walk the last half mile home because the snowplows haven't made it to your street yet, you'd die laughing too at these Californians, forever whining and crying about weather they don't have. Weather: they shouldn't be allowed to use the word, since they have no comprehension of its literal meaning.

Nadine, meanwhile, got on the phone. "Hello, yes, I'd like the number for Southwest airlines, please, and can you connect me directly? I don't have a pen and paper to write anything down." Her voice was curiously calm, considering I'd just whacked her car into concrete, possibly necessitating a wheel alignment at a future date.

"Hello, yes, Darlene? Hi, Darlene," Nadine continued, one hand holding her cell phone, the other bracing herself against the dash. "I'm flying to Albuquerque at 4:05 and I'm running late. The traffic was just terrible; I was stuck for an hour behind a three car pileup on 101, and then of course there's the rain... Oh, you're in Phoenix? Well, I'm in San Jose and it's been pouring all day here; it's unbelievable."

She sure was. I was in awe.

"I'm just pulling into the airport now..."

We were doing no such thing.

"... and I should be there in two minutes. Can you tell me if I'll make my flight?"

Nadine and Darlene continued chatting until I pulled up to the departures zone ten minutes later. The plane would be delayed, it seemed, on account of the rain. Nadine is one of those people for whom things always seem to work out, even when she doesn't deserve them to. She's like my friend Angela: helpless, always the damsel in distress. Always needing rescuing, and somehow always managing to get it.

Next: Postmodern Sass parallel parks the big-ass Mercedes in downtown Palo Alto.