So I’m driving up 101 where twelve miles of bumper to bumper behind a blinking, siren-surrounded, jack-knifed big rig are followed by sleet, flying debris, drunken car wind, thunder and a legal addict blowing smoke distress signals out the barely down window of beater beemer.

Beyond the rubber arms swatting saltless tears from my de-de-frosted windshield, lightning stretched across the eastern sky just as a mile of billboards went black. The radio goes dead.

And there I am, driving through a THX rainstorm, alone. For a split second, in a dark that makes fog invisible, I have no incoming marketing or entertainment.

I damn near panicked.