Near Death Experience

So I could have died yesterday. And I say (write?) that in all seriousness. I'm ok, no damage done to anyone or anything (except perhaps the alignment of my car, though it seems ok), but still. It could have been really really bad. It snowed yesterday, and though there wasn't much accumulation the roads were not well-plowed. I was turning left from a stoplight when my car simply lost all traction. (I had started from a red light, so I was going ~5 mph when this happened.) Halfway through the turn I started sliding. Outward. I tried to get control as my car then skidded so that I was facing left; we turned 180 degress back to the right. Then another 180 degrees back to the left at which point I went up into the grassy median (where there is certainly potential for having screwed up my alignment). At this point all I did was make sure no one was behind me, backed off the curb, turned around and headed back on my way.

The strangest part is that the whole thing went so slowly in my head! As I'm skidding back and forth I remember wondering if the cars behind me were in the way (and thus I was trying to avoid a 360 degree rotation), but I wasn't going to check over my shoulder as there was nothing I could do even if they were in the way and taking my eyes off of what was going on in front of me seemed the wrong thing. Luckily, everyone behind me saw the Mystique squirming out of control and managed to stay out of the way. And as I went up into the median my only thought was, "Damn. I'm headed into oncoming traffic and am going to need a new car after this." Bizarre.

And still, after all this, it didn't even phase me last night. I knew it was not good, and there were about 12 times that I could have been seriously injured or killed if I had gotten hit. But I just went home (after a little more skidding on my slippery street) and it wasn't until this morning that I went to go get in my car and had a moment of "Dear goodness, I cannot possibly ever drive again after that experience." I quickly put that out of my head and went on my merry way, but it was a completely delayed reaction. Delayed by like 12 hours.

So that's my story. I feel really lucky right now. It's not like people don't have bad driving experiences in the snow all the time, but this was the closest I've ever come to being in serious trouble. I don't care to do it again.