The Price of Brakes

I'm riding with my pal Booger. Heaven knows why, considering my previous narrow escapes. Maybe I'm an adrenaline junkie. Suffice to say, the guy drives like a maniac. No. Is a maniac.

So he's barreling along at 120 mph, and there, up ahead, predictably, is the slow-moving semi.

"Stop, Booger! Stop!!" I scream. "Hit the brakes!!!"

"Ain't hittin' no brakes," says Booger calmly.

"We're going to crash!" I shriek. "We're going to die! You can't drive this fast!"

Booger turned his head 90 degrees to look me square in the face. "Course I can," he said. "I'm doin' it. God intended for us to drive as fast as we want. It's a God-given right."

"Maybe," I squeaked, "but surely, He did not intend for us to crash into the rear ends of semis."

"Ain't gonna do that," said Booger reassuringly, if a bit reproachfully. "That's just some wild theory of yours. Ain't happened before, no reason to think it will now. I've driven behind semis before loads of times. Ain't crashed yet."

"But not this close at 2 miles a minute!" I point out urgently.

"Could be," admitted Booger, "but there's no need to do anything rash. It needs a lot more study."

"No! No!" I insist. "Brakes now, study later!"

Booger shakes his head slowly. He still hasn't turned it back in the direction of the road and our impending doom. "Now, that would be a very irresponsible thing to do," he says evenly. "Do you know how much stress stomping on the brakes puts on the braking system? That's too much friction, all at once. That's bound to damage the brake lines, maybe the master cylinder. You can't just go mashing the brakes any which way! You have to consider the costs."

"Whereas," I reply, "if you don't slam on the brakes, you won't have a damn car! Or be alive to worry about damage to your braking system!"

Booger, still looking at me, narrows his eyes. "I think you're plotting to have my license revoked," he says. "But let's say, just for the sake of argument, that we do crash into that truck, and we do die. So what? God's just gonna snap us up and take us to heaven before we actually hit. Well, He's gonna snap me up, I should say. Probably not you."

And I have no answer for that because we're all over the backside of that semi.

Yeah, I know it's unrealistic. There wasn't enough time for all that. And there isn't.