This afternoon I was driving back from my "Teaching the Exceptional Child in the Regular Classroom" class in Bangor, roughly 130 miles from my house. I was in my parents' Saab, since Maurice Cavalier's front end is out of alignment and he shakes a lot on the highway. About 40 miles south of Bangor, the Saab's engine started to occasionally cut out, all kinds of lights would come on, the speedometer would go to zero, and then everything would come back. A bit disconcerting when you're going 65 mph. Or so.
I immediately went into Disastah Recovery Mode, taking note of the highway, the position of neutral on the Saab (I don't usually drive an automatic), the hazard lights, etc., so if the engine totally died I would be able to get off the highway safely. I reviewed The Plan in my head: 1) turn on hazard lights, an arm's-length away on the right side of the dash; 2) brake; 3) ease to the right until I hear the right-hand wheels on the rumble strip, and slow way down; 4) slowly cross the rumble strip until I hear the left-hand wheels on it; 5) ease over to the right until the wheels are off the rumble strip, and come to a stop. I was ready.
About 10 seconds later I realized that this is my plan to be used if I suddenly go blind while driving. But I could see to get the car off the road. What a trivial task! A wave of relief swept over me.
From that point on, the Saab engine was fine for the rest of the drive.