Hubcap From Hell

Remember when I asked for your scary stories?  This one comes from my husband, Doug, and although it's not scary it might make you hum the tune to "The Twilight Zone."  I think it was a the result of a little bit of ESP.  What do you think?    -Mary

I take the scientific approach.  The world is explainable.  Sure, like everyone else, at one time I entertained far out ideas about ghosts and extra-terrestrials.  But then I had a conversion to science.  Only what is observed and corroborated by independent parties who can replicate the same conditions can be considered to be true.  A proposition can never be proven true, only false.  If enough people bear the same witness that is backed by fact; real and documented observation, then the proposition might be true.

All “supernatural” occurrences have an explanation in the real world.  Most of what passes for ‘supernatural’ or ‘psychic’ phenomena can be explained in terms of subconscious or subliminal perception.  The subconscious mind is a fabulous computer and an idiot savant at calculating odds and constructing images.  Our lives run in grooves, in highly distinctive patterns, and our conscious minds are completely unaware of these patterns.  You are thinking about your long-lost friend, and suddenly the phone rings, and it’s your friend.  Freak out!  Supernatural! But your subconscious knew that this was the anniversary of some key moment you and your friend shared.  Your mind calculated the odds and knew that there was some chance you’d hear from the friend and it alerted you in advance.  All subconscious.  No supernatural.  No freak out.  No twilight zone.  

I was driving down the freeway one day in my rainforest green Pathfinder, which I’d named Chingachgook.  I’d just come off of the curving ramp between Interstate 5 south and US 50 and was heading east towards the mountains and home.  Traffic was heavy and slowing only slightly.  Suddenly into my mind appeared the image of a hubcap rolling down the road on its edge.  I didn’t think much about it, but I’d never seen a hubcap rolling down a highway on its edge.  I drove on.  A few minutes later (not right away), I saw a hubcap rolling down along the freeway on its edge.  Scientific me was for a moment baffled.  Then I had it—subliminal perception.  Out of the corner of my eye, my subconscious saw the hubcap on the car, wobbling a bit and about to come off.  Subconscious constructed a projection of what could happen, of what was about to happen to this hubcap.  It did so at this time because it knew that in this situation a wayward hubcap could present a danger and it wanted to alert the conscious automobile pilot, but not scare him to distraction.  It wanted to calculate the odds.  Right?  

-Doug