The Worst Thing To Happen To You While Driving

You're driving on a freeway; cruising at 70. Things are going your way and though the roads are crowded, you've got things on lock. You're paying attention because of the large amounts of traffic, but it's nothing you haven't dealt with before. 


Then. Out of no where. You get that tingling feeling in your nose. Your eyes start to water. You start breathing abnormally. Your face starts to have mild spasms, you begin to feel absurd amounts a pressure building in your sinus' and you know exactly what's coming. 


You're about to sneeze. 

Has this ever happened to anyone else? I can almost hear the narrator's voice every time this has happened to me (and there have been several occasions). I hate it. Every time I have to sneeze it's always on the freeway or right when I am about to make a left hand turn. The two most inopportune times possible and worse, there is nothing you can do about it.

A sneeze, according to medical-dictionary.com, by definition is:

To expel air forcibly from the mouth and nose in an explosive, spasmodic involuntary action resulting chiefly from irritation of the nasal mucous membrane.

Gross, right? And when you are driving, hands on the wheel and eyes on the road, complete disequilibrium occurs. This is where the 'Choose Your Own Adventure' begins.

Do you cover your mouth with your hands?

Yes. Read A.

No. Read B.

A. Now not only have you created the road hazard of a car drifting due to you're lack of attention and when you grab the wheel again, you get whatever was 'expelled' from your 'nasal mucous membrane' all over the wheel. Or your pants. Or the passenger seat...


B. Congrats. You now have that moisture all over the inside of your windshield.

Do you do what happens naturally and close your eyes?

Yes. Read C.

No. Read D.

C. At any moment you could drive into a median, a fellow driver, a pedestrian or miss a turn. Your visual inattention could cause some serious damage. You know what they say, it only takes a few seconds to change your life...


D. You just had your eyeballs explode because of the extreme amount of pressure from the sneeze. And you thought there would be a mess from not covering your mouth.

In my experiences with this dilemma, I have tried out all variations of how to deal with this seemingly trivial but temporarily terrifying experience and have yet to find a solution. All I know is that either I feel like I am going to crash, burn and die in those split seconds or my car just feels contaminated after.

A lose lose situation. A 'Catch 22' if you will. Either way, bad news.