The wind blew in through the open car window as he drove. He rested his arm on the door, it was a beautiful day and he was just cruising.
He loved this car. It was an older Toyota, and though he hated to admit it, it wasn’t in perfect shape, it was still a cool looking car. He knew this because of the many people who he watched as he drove by. Many smiled, both at him and at his car. He looked cool in his car.
He was cruising down the highway at about 65 mph. He was thoroughly enjoying the day.
This Toyota not as great as he made it sound. The body of the car was badly rusted and in several places it had rusted completely through. He had taken to putting speed tape on it to cover the holes and rust. The tape was almost the same color as the car, but not close enough. There was an impressive amount of tape on the car.
Jokingly several of his coworkers had commented to him,
“One of these days you will be driving and the tape will peel off and your whole car will come apart.” He would laugh, but he just though the guys were jealous that they didn’t have a car as cool as him.
As he was driving he noticed a piece of the tape on the hood was fluttering. He had meant to fix that, but it seemed it had been fluttering more. The piece was slowly peeling off as he watched, and suddenly it flew off. As it went, three other pieces of tape began to flutter. And within a short time, one piece about a foot long peeled off and glanced off the windshield. He looked in the rear view and saw it in the road behind.
In the moment he was looking in the rear view, another piece of tape peeled off and bounced off the windshield. he snapped his eyes around to the front, then back to the rear view and saw another piece of tape in the road behind him.
As he turned his attention back front he noticed a noise. There was the noise of the tape fluttering, but there was another noise that was getting louder and louder. As he looked at the hood, it seemed all the tape was coming off. Besides the flapping sound there seemed to be another noise, it almost sounded like bending sheet metal.
He had not slowed down during all of this. He began to think it might be a good idea to maybe stop and take a look at the car. But it was too late.
For each piece of tape that flew off, three or four more would come loose. And very soon the car was loosing tape rapidly. As more tape fell away, the structural stability of the car began to weaken. The man hadn’t realized how much tape he had put on the car, and just how much of the body panels had rusted and how weak they had become. Until most of the structural strength of the car was tape. And when the tape began to be removed, the car body became weaker and weaker.
What happened next was talked about by those who witnessed it for many years. Every body panel on the car started to fly off. He was still driving at about sixty miles per hour, and the wind was ripping panels off. It started at the front of the car and it was rather spectacular when the hood of the car launched itself off and over the car. Within a split second it looked as if the car had run into a tree because it looked as if the car just flew apart.
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