On Friday, we drove 200 miles to State College to see Hannah. On Sunday, we drove 200 miles back home. Yesterday, I drove 300 miles back and forth to Richmond for a meeting. What does that all mean? It means I have an awful lot of dead bug remnants on my windshield.
Normally, at this time of the year, my car is covered with pollen. It's not that big of a deal. I let it build up and pray for rain. Then, I let the car sit outside and have Mother Nature wash all the pollen away.
This year, the pollen is bad. It's nothing like the bugs, though.
On the ride to State College on Friday, things weren't that bad at first. Kim took the first shift as I had a couple calls I needed to make. As we drove on I-70 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, she managed to hit a few nice juicy ones. I gave her a hard time, accusing her of purposely swerving into them. She ignored me, as she should have.
We switched places at the rest stop on the Turnpike just after Breezewood. For a while, as a I drove, I forgot about the bugs. But, that became impossible on I-99. From Bedford to Tyrone, it almost sounded like we were in a microwave making popcorn. "Pop." "Pop-pop." "Pop-pop-pop-pop."
If the noises weren't bad enough, the mess on the windshield was something else altogether. You know how you're driving sometimes, heading towards a thunderstorm, just on the fringes of the rain? You start to get some intermittent big drops on the windshield, each one about the size of a quarter. As you hurtle along the road, the speed of your car causes each rain drop to spread out irregularly. That's the way it was with these monsters. They'd hit your car and leave you with a greenish-yellow, somewhat thick, runny mess. It was pointless to try to use the wiper fluid to clean the windshield. The bugs were just coming too fast.
Yesterday, on the drive back and forth to Richmond, things were just as bad. On the way home, it was like I was on I-99 all over again. But these were Virginia bugs. They were bigger, greener, juicier. It was almost too much.
Right now, my poor car is sitting in the garage. As much as I hate to pay for a car wash, I think I'm going to have to break down rather than wait for the weekend. I'll admit it -- I'm afraid to touch all that crusty goop on my car.
