I was traveling to the Arkansas Press Association conference, where I received three awards for my work this past year. I got second place for my column on domestic violence, first place for my education coverage and shared first place with my editor for a news article. That's really cool and I'm super excited about it, but the more important thing here is that I almost lost a tooth on the way there.
While I did drive on the highway in high school and on my way home during college, I haven't driven on the highway for an extended period of time in a year or so. Many of the roads in Northwest Arkansas have a 55 MPH speed limit, which allows me to slow down and listen to sad songs on repeat. I enjoy it.
That said, I did not expect to be so rusty at driving on the highway this weekend. I had also forgotten to floss and decided to pull out a string of floss at a red light before merging onto the interstate. Suddenly I was driving 70 MPH with a string of floss hanging from my mouth and one hand on the steering wheel. The other hand was attempting to pull the floss out, but somehow I wrapped it around my tooth instead.
When I finally pulled it out, blood was pouring out of my mouth. So there I was, driving faster than I'd driven in over a year, screaming in pain and sucking all the blood down my throat so that I didn't get it on my professional clothes. I had hoped it would be a funny story to recount, but reading over it I have realized that it's quite horrifying.
Oh well. I am alive, my tooth is still in place and I know better than to do the old drive 'n floss again. On the bright side, I got to say this to my mom when she took me to lunch on Saturday:
"I was worried about someone breaking into my car, but then I was like, 'What are they going to get? A blood-stained string of floss?"
I am such a joy.
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