From time to time I get to thinking about how huge a difference a few seconds can make in our lives. Today I experienced another instance of this phenomenon.

Today as our shifts at work were overlapping, I showed the daytime supervisor the Batman on Drugs video as he was on his way out the door. He was amused by the stupidity of it all, just as many of us were. We laughed and said goodbye and he left for the day.

On his way home he ran into a deer (with his car). He sustained no real injuries save for the airbag brush burn, and a huge dose of adrenaline. But this could have potentially been fatal.

Had I not asked him to check out the Batman on Drugs video, he would not have run into the deer, would not have destroyed his car, and would not have to call of tomorrow. It's strange how much impact a few seconds can make.

At first I blamed myself, but I soon realised that had punthe never posted the video, I would never have shown the supervisor the video, and he would have made it home safely for the night. So it's all punthe's fault, really. I hope you can sleep at night, punthe.

But I digress with my blame shifting, does anyone else have a story about how big a difference a few seconds made?

Yeah, Bornbad and I can discuss the difference a few seconds or minutes makes when posting articles here at Plime.

Actually, anything that happens to you, you can blame on one thing or another. I do everytime I get a ticket, have to wait on a train, ect. Had I just left a few minutes earlier, or taken a different route.

One way to look at it is what if he had not been delayed by watching the video. He may have hit another deer, or three, that would have caused him to wreck and substain worse injuries. Or he could have swerved to miss the deer he actually hit and instead hit a tree or another car, causing more injury or possible death.

Yet another way to look at is this guy's car and the deer had a date with destiny, and you were just instrumental in making sure it happened. Perhaps it didn't matter what he did, it was going to happen anyway. I tend to not believe in destiny because I like to think we have some say in what happens to us, but you never know.

In other words, sh*t happens, but hey, he gets a new car out of the deal.

Tom, have you bought that lottery ticket yet?

Have you bought yours? You beat me by less than two minutes earlier this week.

Well I'm glad to hear he was alright. Never a month goes by that we don't have some kind of deer related accident.

I think they are working for the terrorists...

Whenever I start thinking about I do a quick mental head-slap for a couple of reasons: 1. I can't change the path I took so why worry about it, and 2. s**t happens/"everything happens for a reason"

Something that I thought of happened to me a few months ago. I was driving to work, in the second lane from the left, when suddenly a car comes from the right, spinning wildly, missing my car by a foot or less, and coming to a rest against the concrete barrier. This car was about to exit the freeway, and swerved to avoid being hit by a vehicle coming into their lane, hit the right wall, then bounced off doing 360s all the way across 5 or 6 lanes of traffic, and didn't hit a single car.

When thinking about that, If I had been going slightly faster, I would have been in the path of the car.

i was in the car with my friends 20 year old brother. we are driving down a totally normal road. its busy, but not too busy. people were following the speed limit. no big deal. well just two cars ahead of us, a car stopped for some random reason and the car right in front of us slammed into the back of that car. we swerved around it and kept going. we didn't really think anything of it. they got in a little car accident. we kept on going like 100 feet to the del taco drive thru. on our way back on the other side of that same road, we see like 11 cars all stopped and like damaged and broken and cars on the sidewalk and doodie. we were like OMG! WHAT THE HELL!

turns out that the car in front of us got totally totalled by that little crash and was stuck in the middle of the road and it couldn't be moved. that street is kinda on a hill and it was on the very beginning of the down hill. well the light is right on the other side of the hill. so when the light turned green, all the cars went at not too bad of a speed ( 50 MPHish ) over the hill and right as they went over they ALL started going around to the one other lane and then on the sidewalk and then when all of those filled up they had to break but they couldn't do it in time and they all crashed one another on that first car that was stuck in the middle of the road. the crashes weren't THAT bad. nobody died, a few people went to the hospital but nothing that serious. a broekn arm or leg. nothing fatal, but many MANY cars got totalled or totally ruined.

my friend's older brother had just gotten a new car. i was really hungry so i kinda rushed them to get in the car and go. if we had waited maybe 30 seconds more to leave, we would have been in the middle of that huge pile-up.

it was a pretty scary thought.

Actually, you can blame the butterfly effect. Somewhere in South America, an insect zigged when it should have zagged...

This subtle disturbance in the air set in motion a chain of events that caused punthe to post the batman link at the precise time to cause your supervisor's collision with the deer.

Blame it on the bugs.

Yeah i too have been thinking about a few seconds. My sister was in an accident, she was fine, but the vehicle was totaled... if she left just 2 seconds earlier... the other car wouldnt have hit her.
same with my older brother, people think he swerved from a deer, if that was the case, just like another minute in time, and he would still be fine today.

Yes, what DEP described is totally the butterfly effect. I think what it boils down to is we don't have a hope in hell of knowing all the ways our actions will shape the future.

Most delayed reply ever.

Why are all these ancient threads being resurrected?

Newbies seem to be digging, don't they?

I don't know, but I wish I had seen it the first time around.

10 years ago, my brother was on his way over to a friends house, and made a stop to grab some beer. When he came out of the store he ran into another friend and stopped to talk for a couple of minutes. If not for that short delay at the store, he would have driven smack into the path of this:

After a few seconds, I was done and she was on her way to being pregnant...

Actually, that award would go to JLB's post above mine.

At probably the same time that my brother was paying for his beer, a few seconds made a big difference for our friend (George) that he was going to visit. He heard the warnings on TV, and went next door to his Grandparents house, which was a sturdier brick structure. Just as things were getting really bad, he realized his cat was AWOL. He ran back out into the storm and called the to cat from his own front porch. The cat came to him and George picked him up and headed back next door. He jumped off the porch and the wind grabbed him. His feet didn't touch the ground again until after he had bounced off the side of his grandmothers house. He made it back inside and closed the door, which was a struggle against the wind. The second he got the door to close, the roof departed from the house. A mad dash to the basement just in the nick of time saved him and the cat both from certain death as the house was ripped up and carried off by the tornado. 10 seconds later going to find that cat and...

Sorry to rain on the topic, but how do you know your boss wouldn't have hit the deer if you hadn't delayed him.

Maybe he would have hit the first deer to cross and instead hit the fourth. Maybe the sound of your bosses car approaching caused it to panic and run into the road (in which case it would have happened sooner).

Hindsight is a fine thing, but you only know what DID happen, not what could have happened. (Unless you own a device that lets you cross into alternate realities and see what would have happened. Unfortunately these are rare and very expensive. I would loan you mine, but I looked, and you don't always bring it back, and in the timelines where you do, it is usually damaged.)

No way, have you seen this video?



Freaking hilarious.