My Car, The Hero

A car oftentimes resembles its owner, but not always. It isn't usually a conscious decision for a person to choose a car that represents him/her; an owner in many cases will just naturally gravitate towards the car that fits their personality. For instance, a superficial person will usually ride around in a flashier car, a frugal (or cheap) person will most likely drive an economic car, and a redneck will feel most at home when cruising around in an El Camino or a broken down school bus (or maybe a mobile home, although that may be considered more of a hybrid car). I have an Infiniti G35, and while we both possess a sleak, sexy exterior and a lot of amazing features, I have had my doubts about whether my car does me justice. This past weekend at a beach house in La Jolla, CA my doubts were put to rest.

This weekend I drove my car down to La Jolla to reunite with some college friends along with their significant others, kids, etc... As the weekend drew to a close, I along with three of my friends, the wife of one of my friends, and my friend's one-year old baby decided to go to the beach one last time. After showing off my mad boogie boarding skills to the amazement of those around me, I decided to take a breather and headed for the shore. As I reached my towel, my friend's wife approached me without her baby and in a state of complete hysteria, screaming for me to get our group out of the water and head home immediately. I had no idea where her baby was, and internally I began to panic.

After getting everyone out of the water, she informed us that the baby was safely in the house. This calmed me down until she explained that she had just witnessed our friend's five-year-old inadvertently slip and fall 25 feet from the second-story balcony onto the driveway below. A fall like that could have had very tragic results. As luck would have it, however, a knight in shining silver armor arrived in the nick of time and reached out its hood to catch the little tyke, breaking his fall and allowing him to escape the whole incident with only a few minor scrapes and bruises and a night in the Emergency Room.
My car sacrificed life and limb (and dented hood) for the life of another. It did exactly what I would have done if I were a big metal machine that had been sitting in the driveway for hours upon end in exactly the same spot all day. And it occurred to me at that moment that my car and I weren't so different after all.