The Fine Art of Hydroplaning
by Sean McBride

         Although drag races were always fun in the 50's, my favorite car game was indubitably "Chicken." There's nothing safer I can think of to do with two cars and a cliff than to get roaring drunk, hop into the driver's seats, and then hurtle ourselves as fast as we possibly can towards Doom, usually screeching to a halt three inches from its rocky edge. Of course, I was but a twinkle in my mother's eye in the 50's when all those things were going down and even she was too young to be playing Chicken. (Things were a lot stricter back then for preschoolers.) I, being a modern automobile driver, engage in much more sophisticated automobile games, some of which will kill you, and others of which will severely mangle your head without actually killing you. One such diversion is a little thing I like to call hydroplaning.

         Hydroplaning sounds like some sort of wacky geometric principle that Archimedes would invent to make tenth-grade math students feel dumb. On the contrary, my good classmates, it's actually much simpler than it sounds. Hydroplaning is one of the more romanticized ways to relinquish control of your car.

         An infamous Boyle once taught me how a man could drown in half an inch of water. Imagine a man (we'll say his name is Alberto) who happens upon a large expanse of water with a uniform depth of half an inch. There is a Philadelphia cheesesteak on the other end, and Alberto wants it. Badly. So with much fervor in his step, Alberto begins to run across the slick surface. In his mad dash, however, he slips and falls, hitting his head. Now lying unconscious on the ground with his face in the water, Alberto drowns and dies, never having reached the delicious Philadelphia cheesesteak. The moral of the story is that a cheesesteak can kill you faster than you think.

         But if you wanted to make good use of random pools of water lying about, you could hydroplane!! Hydroplane is nothing more than gliding effortlessly over puddles in the road. Before you master this skill, though, I recommend that you try it with a car--chicks dig the car.

         When you're driving through a rainstorm, speed over every puddle you see! With luck and practice, you can actually skim upon the surface of the water and not have to worry about pesky things like "handling." It's beautiful! Almost like having your own family hovercraft, only with everything to slam into and nothing to slow you down.

         And doggone it, Mom and Dad, don't hesitate to bring the kids! It will seem every bit as magical as Mary Poppins flying her kite when they sing,

"Let's go hy-dro-plane
out in the pouring rain!
Let's hit a guy from Spain
and send him soaring!

Put the pedal on the floor
in the midst of a downpour!
Let's go . . . hy-dro-plane! Yea!"

         Hydroplaning is just plain good-old fashioned fun. It's not about advanced geometry, or speeding off cliffs, or the civil rights of cantaloupes in public restrooms; no, it's not about any of these things. It's about you and me, and the things we can do with a puddle and a car, and jiminey cricket! if we don't have ourselves a grand time! So venture forth and hydroplane your hearts out, little hombres. Learn to appreciate the fine arts. But as you careen from puddle to puddle, spilling your drinks and non-stop dropping your Whoppers with cheese, just remember in the back of your minds to bypass the cheesesteaks at all costs.


Next month: The first Transatlantic Hydroplane Flight.

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Sean McBride has had more traffic violations than he can count, but he swears that it's less than the number of times he's been driven under the influence of heavy mayonnaise. In addition to running the Electric Big-Bang Swing Machine, he also writes for Your MoM (an e-zine that doesn't exist) as well as Forbidden Planet, (an e-zine with a plan to take over your world).

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