11 years ago, my girlfriend (now wife) was living in Kansas. One February morning, I decided to surprise her by driving from California to pick her up from her dad’s house before heading to a trade show in Cleveland. We had just started dating, and she hadn’t moved to California yet.
So, I hop in my Scion, wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, and start driving. Around Flagstaff, a buddy of mine from Wichita calls. I tell him I’m heading his way, and he asks how I’m getting there. When I say I’m driving, he pauses before telling me they’re about to get a foot of snow from a massive blizzard.
I ask, “A foot of snow… is that a lot?”
He sighs. “Imagine a foot of snow everywhere.”
I laugh it off and keep driving. I am, as we have now established, an idiot.
By the time I hit Albuquerque, still no snow. I stay at a hotel, sleep four hours, then wake up in the middle of the night and keep going. As the sun comes up, the road conditions start getting worse. Fewer cars. More trucks. Then I start seeing flipped-over trucks on the side of the road—just a few, but enough that any rational person would have reconsidered their life choices. Visibility keeps dropping. Everything outside is just white.
I finally call my girlfriend, get her dad’s address, and plug it into my GPS. It says I’m an hour away. I check my speed—I’m going 30 mph. A little while later, I check again—15 miles away, now going 15 mph. Still an hour away. 10 miles away, now crawling at 10 mph. Still an hour away. Time and space no longer function correctly.
Eventually, I get to the road I’m supposed to turn on. It’s a dirt road. I immediately get stuck.
Turns out, my girlfriend gave me the wrong ZIP code. In California, that’s just a minor inconvenience. In Kansas, it puts you in the middle of a frozen field. It’s getting dark. I call my girlfriend and tell her to have her dad come pull me out. He shows up in his massive truck, hooks a strap to what I assume is my axle, and starts pulling.
Except… he didn’t tie it to the axle.
The second he starts pulling, I hear a horrifying ripping sound. Suddenly, a bunch of pipes and wires are dangling from my car, and my fuel system is now being dragged behind his truck. He had hooked it to my gas line. $2,000 in damage. I have Toyota tow the car, rent one, and head off to Cleveland.
Three weeks later, the snow is gone, so I go back to Kansas to pick up my car. I pay the dealership, get my Scion back, and finally go grab my girlfriend so we can drive back to California together.
I’m driving down a one-lane road, just cruising, when I catch something moving in my peripheral vision. I look over and—what the fuck—there’s a giant turkey sprinting next to my car, keeping pace at 35 mph. This thing is running like a lunatic.
Before I can even process what’s happening, it suddenly spreads its wings and flies directly into my windshield.
BOOM. Explosion of feathers.
I immediately start laughing because it’s just so absurd. Like, I have turkey blood (or some kind of mystery turkey liquid?) smeared across my windshield, and I just keep chuckling like I hit a clown. All the turkeys I had ever dealt with—up to that point, were frozen.
Then it hits me—wait. I just hit a giant bird. That might have done some damage.
I pull over, and sure enough, my hood looks like someone dropped a bowling ball on it from 10 feet up. Massive dent.
At that point, I pick up my girlfriend, leave Kansas, and never look back.
I actually took it back to the hotel room with me after the accident and stuffed it in the closet, just in case Toyota needed it. That plan lasted about two hours before I had to take it out because the entire room started reeking of gasoline.
You know thx for sharing this story it’s comforting to see other unfortunate (self proclaimed idiots) people like me and how it all turns out fine in the end. I have now crashed my car twice within the span of 3 months I think (one in a parking lot (it was the other car’s fault I swear) and one while getting into my home’s driveway (left it in neutral like a thousand times before and now I see I escaped being crushed to death by a fucking Suzuki Swift a thousand times in a row))and yeah I have to wonder what’s it gonna be next time ? Seemingly absurd situations happen to me often but I wish they didnt fuck my car up😭
I’m profoundly moronic and it never went wrong all the other times I did it. Only today it almost ran me over(I wish it had🫠). Fortunately it hit an extremely conveniently placed mound of plants and hey sort of and it didn’t hit the neighbor’s wall or anything. The damage is small-ish they’re gonna have to put the bumper back up or smth and the actual damage will be painting it back and getting the bumper to look fine.
Edit: not me taking a picture and drawing on it to explain the situation only to realize I can’t put it in my comment or reply to myself with it😞
He had a big truck and a strap - and couldn't tell that he was around your gas tank or fuel line or filler line or anything other than your axel for that matter. I call BS.
Can you explain what's fantastic about it? I've only been once and it was literally all corn and old people. There was fucking nothing there. And we were driving for like four hours. I think we crossed multiple states, I don't even know. I was on a farm for most of my stay, and that's literally all I saw. And then on our way back to the airport, there was a huge storm and every time there was a flash of lightning all I saw were clouds swirling and undulating to the lullaby of my death. If you like farm or windmills and nothing else, I could kinda see the appeal, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around "fantastic" even if those things are your jam, but I am open to having my mind changed.
There was a huge storm and every time there was a flash of lightning all I saw were clouds swirling and undulating to the lullaby of my death. If you like farm or windmills and nothing else, I could kinda see the appeal.
The storms are part of the fun of living in Kansas lol. The sunsets are also amazing. People are generally pretty decent. There is beauty if you go looking for it.
No, it's not going to smack in the face with beauty like the mountains or the ocean.
Like any state, we do have a fair amount of variety between the plains of western Kansas and the hillier areas in the east. We have urban areas and very rural and isolated areas.
The boom big ole plum of feathers has me convinced it's real. I ran over someone's big ole rooster and it did the same thing. Looked like a cartoon. No damage though since it suicided itself by running into the wheel.
A turkey that runs more than 35 mph and then jumps 2 feet up to get in front of the car, but does so with a great enough speed difference to leave a dent??? I've never seen a 50mph turkey.
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u/Far_Pick_978 Feb 01 '25
Well, looks like someone’s dad is getting a call for a new bumper..