51. Time Is On Your Side
I moved away from my hometown a few years ago for school and I now live three hours away from my friend’s house. I usually drive down once a month or so to visit him, and it has pretty much always taken me three hours to drive down. On rare occasions, if traffic is really good, it may take a little less time. More in the range of two hours and 45 minutes.
Now, I’ve done this drive dozens of times, so I know the route very well. The distance between my house and my friend’s house is 178 miles. A few months ago, my brother and I started driving down to our friend’s house at exactly noon. As soon as I got into my car, I texted my mom and friends to let them know that we were coming down for the weekend.
The drive itself was nothing noteworthy. Traffic was lighter than normal, but as I said nothing else happened that was out of the ordinary. I tend to go a little over the speed limit of 70 miles per hour, but never faster than 100 miles per hour. Going anywhere near that speed is way too dangerous for public roads with other people around.
Once we arrived at my friend’s house, they were confused as to why we were so early. When I checked my phone, I made a disturbing discovery. It was only 1:30. We made it to their house in an hour and a half. We drove 178 miles in 1.5 hours. That equates to an average speed of 118 miles per hour throughout the entire trip. Granted, I drive a sports car.
My car’s speed is limited to 124 miles per hour for top speed, and there is no way I could keep it pinned at that speed for the entire way there. Between fear of getting a ticket and the engine definitely not allowing it, this just wasn’t a possibility. To say we were surprised would be a major understatement. I never use my phone while I’m driving and I rarely look at the clock in my car, since my attention is always on the road and on other drivers.
There is no logical explanation that we could come up with for what happened. I knew for a fact that I never went above 100 miles per hour the whole drive, and I knew exactly what time we had left, since we have text messages showing the exact time we said goodbye. And our friends have confirmed that we did indeed show up at 1:30.
The only illogical explanation I can think of is that we experienced some sort of time dilation, but I say illogical since that theory is only applicable to particles traveling near the speed of light. Not a car going less than 100 miles per hour. I guess I will never know how or why I experienced this apparent glitch in the matrix.