Well, the car started to come around, so I stood on the brakes and yanked the wheel over the other way, knowing that my only shot was to get out of all three lanes and try to swing the car's rear end back around in so doing. I was going fast enough that I spun completely around and kept going. I think I peeled about 10K worth of tread off my tires, too, if the smell is any indication.
I ended up at roughly a 45 degree angle to the side of the highway, looking out my windshield at oncoming traffic -- and at the cop parked directly behind me, nose to off-kilter nose. He had his lights on and I think I heard his siren, at some point, but I'm not sure.
I slowly turned the car around and got it parked nose-forward on the side of the highway. Then I climbed out and went toward the cop car. I figured he'd seen me pull that little stunt and was going to pull me over for drunk driving or just basically being a moron.
"I'm over here," he said from the shoulder, where I didn't see him in the shadows from all the spinning colored lights coming off his car.
I opened my mouth to tell him that, no, I wasn't drunk, and that there had been something in the road that I swerved to avoid.
"That," he said, cutting me off, "was some incredible driving."
Turns out that somebody left a freaking chair in the middle of the highway. Maybe it fell off a truck or something; I don't know. That's what I swerved to avoid. It was a pretty big chair, too, though I don't know if it was wooden or upholstered or what. Anyway, the cop had been following behind me, looking for the chair he'd been called to retreive, when I found it first.
I shook his hand and thanked him for pulling in behind me (saving me from being rear-ended -- or, well, front-ended, since I was pointing that way). He kept asking me if I was okay to drive, and I assured him I was. "I watched the whole thing," he said, shaking his head, "and I gotta say, you did a great job."
I muttered my rattled thanks and drove off, with the smell of burning rubber to keep me company for the rest of the thankfully short trip.
