I'd Like You to Meet My Little Friend

Here's a free physics lesson for you. You're welcome. I strive to be Val Physicsseed, spreading knowledge across the nation.

This morning The Pony and I were nearly flattened by an oncoming dump truck. It was pulling a trailer holding a backhoe, as trucks on our blacktop county road are wont to do. I crested a hill and saw my imminent doom barreling toward my Tahoe's grill. Some inhuman sound that originated deep in my throat may or may not have escaped my lips. I veered for the ditch which would be a shoulder on a normal road, and jammed on my brakes. Anti-lock. I know that, because a light on my dashboard told me for the next mile.

A collision was narrowly avoided when Dumpy swerved himself back into his designated lane. Items in my nonpressurized cabin flew around like so much space shuttle detritus. Only faster. My large plastic free hospital cup of ice and water wedged itself under the heating control box, thankfully saving me from a day without sweet, sweet well water. A stubby recycled garlic butter cup full of change slid from one end of my inch-deep console top to the other, along a non-skid rubber strip. A screw appeared out of nowhere. I hope nothing falls off in the next few trips.

But the main casualty of this Law of Inertia lesson was a pill. A tidbit of medication that I take just before arrival at work. I could take it with the others during breakfast, but it is a heart-rate slower. It makes me feel like I'm walking underwater in a deep-sea-diver suit as I enter the building. So I take it right before we get there, and I don't notice the immediate effects for the first thirty minutes like I would otherwise. I always put it on the top of the inch-deep console compartment where I don't have to fish for it.

In case you are not on speaking terms with Newton's First Law of Motion, aka the Law of Inertia, allow me to introduce you. An object at rest tends to stay at rest, or continue in motion at the same speed and direction, unless acted upon by an outside force. There. Shake hands with him. He's a reliable kind of guy.

That pill sailed along at forty miles per hour while the rest of the Tahoe stopped. Sailed along. To parts unknown. It was not even missed until after I pulled over at an opportune farm road entrance and turned off the Tahoe, then turned it back on. That cleared my brake light on the dash. So I assumed it made my brakes work normally again. I'm a science teacher, not a mechanic.

Half a mile down the road, I looked for my pill. I don't know why. It's not like my heart was racing from the shot of adrenaline that dump truck injected into it. MY PILL WAS GONE! We were already late, due to the near-death experience, and Genius being left home sick with a fever. I couldn't go back for another pill. I hit the lettered county road, then the short cut past the bowling alley. I pulled over at the alley.

The Pony was put to lookin' for that pill. "It's white," I explained. "Like an aspirin." I sorted through the stack of white tissues by the drink holders. No pill. I looked in the drink-holder wells. No pill. The Pony scoured the passenger seat and floor. It should have been simple to spot that pill on the black leather and carpet. No pill. I had just about decided to go on to school, ask for a sub, and go home to spend the day with sick Genius, where another pill awaited.

One last try. "Pony. I'm going to climb out, and you look really good under my seat, and in between it and the console." I stepped down. The Pony walked up to peer into the driver's side. He leaned over. Reached up under the dash, behind the brake pedal, and picked that pill off the black carpet past the custom floor mat.

Mr. Newton, a simple pill can travel quite far at forty miles per hour before gravity drags him down, and he slams into the front of the driver's compartment.

I'll bet you thought that inch-high console lip would stop it. You must have forgotten that the Tahoe had just come over the hill, and was headed down the other side when I anti-locked my brakes. That pill sailed along in a straight line until gravity pulled it down and it hit the floor in front of the brake pedal. It ended up on the left side of the Tahoe, because I had veered to the right, toward the ditch. The Pony and I had been dead wrong in looking for it straight ahead, and on the passenger side.

Mr. Newton is never wrong where motion is concerned.