I’m driving home from work today and when I get to the corner of Vista Del Mar and Grand Ave. , where I usually turn away from the beach and up the hill to go home, there is a tank sitting at the light. Running. Not moving.

So, of course

I had to go look, so I turned around, drove back down towards the beach and shot a couple photos of it sitting there. I crossed the street, went into the beach parking lot and came back up, where I took a couple more photos.

Then I pull up next to it and I’m planning to just drive straight through the intersection and up the hill to go home. I pull up to it’s left, sitting right next to it. I’d be right where that pole is sticking up and where the arrow is painted in this photo.

The light turns green and I’m ready to drive away when I hear this “Vroom, Vrooom, Vroooooooooommmmm” and this thing starts moving forward, which I thought was backwards, but forwards is the way I’m pointed and he’s driving across the intersection where I was going. Somewhere in there is a windshield.

Now, I’ve raced a lot of things in my time, but I’ve never raced a tank and I certainly didn’t want to lose a race with a tank. I could see the police report. “He cut off a tank while racing across the intersection, so the tank ran over his truck. No body was found.” You can see the shadow of my truck in this photo and imagin how close I was to him when he took off.

No one turned left in front of him. They all let him go first.

He proceeded to drive up Grand Ave. and on to his waiting trailer. I waited for the next green light and humbly drove by him and went home. This isn’t how my day usually ends.