It's probably just because US-19 is one of the pebbliest roads ever invented, but I actually think it's because of something that happened when I was still in high school. I want to say in 2002 (but can't remember exactly when) I went on a trip to the Bahamas with my Police Explorers group. It was fantastic when we hit Nassau and we got to explore a little bit; the Police Department there was most interesting. Everything was fine up until we got to the island reserved for Royal Caribbean.
I was swimming with a few friends and somehow I ended up without my snorkeling mask on. As a sidenote, I would like to say that I am as blind as anything without my glasses or contacts on and the snorkeling mask served that purpose to a point. Unfortunately, I wasn't thinking, dove into the water and kicked powerfully for a few strokes until my face hit a rock. Yup. Face-first into a rock.
Instantly stunned, I stood up. My friend onshore was heading out to join me at the same time and he saw me stand. I saw his face contort into a look of horror just as I realized that something was dripping down my face. I touched it and realized it was my blood. I didn't hurt any worse than what I was feeling from the sunburn I'd gotten so far, so I sat down in the shallow water just to rinse the blood off my face. My friend must've thought that I was about to faint or something because he ran out and grabbed my arm to take me to the first aid hut. I protested that I just needed to rinse it off, but he wouldn't let me sit back down, even though I tried. I'm pretty sure he was just making sure I didn't faint and drown, but I was most frustrated at the time.
At the first aid hut, the Royal Caribbean doctor (who was Swiss, I think) patched me up and gave my chaperones instructions on how to keep my wound clean and well-bandaged for the duration of the cruise home. I heard later that there were some serious thoughts about sending me to a hospital via helicopter, but someone talked them out of it when they saw how coherent I was. To say the least, it was an interesting trip home and I think that little incident took some of the shyness right out of me for the rest of the trip. Case in point, I finally told the boy I had a crush on just how I felt (even though he already knew) and he kindly told me he was into someone else at the time, he just hadn't told her. Heh...weird trip, indeed. Afterwards, one of the officers who went on the trip with us as a chaperone called me "Crash" from then on. It was a great experience, albeit strange and a bit painful.
Ok...I swear this ties into the rocks in my windshield! Here's the tie-in: Fast forward to a few days after I'm home from my trip and my mom and I are sitting in the well-lit kitchen to swab my forehead wound (which didn't need stitches or even a trip to the doctor, thank goodness) and put on a clean bandage. The wound itself is starting to heal and when my mother took the swab to it, out popped a little chunk of rock which had been embedded in the wound. We all knew it was there, but I didn't want them to remove it for fear of beginning to bleed profusely all over again (man, even mostly superficial head wounds are nasty bleeders). The rock itself was about the size and shape of a larger piece of kitty litter gravel. I didn't keep it, but since then, I've constantly had run-ins with rocks, ESPECIALLY with rocks and my windshield.
Have you ever seen the Jim Henson movie "Labyrinth"? Well, if not, in it there is a giant creature called Ludo and he is a "friend" to rocks.
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