She was not a typhoon, she was just a severe tropical storm. But wet and wild she was, just the same, at least as far as her effects were felt.

“Crising” was nothing like Ondoy or Yolanda even if she unleashed winds and rain that inconvenienced the lot of us driving around Metro Manila last Monday. Still, the floods brought by Crising were high to very high – chest-high – in some places, and as we like to say, when you’re wet in one part of your body, you might as well be wet all over.

Oh, yes, I’ve had my share of being stranded or almost stranded by floods, once on Tomas Morato, where I spent 40 minutes waiting for the water to go down, and once at the entrance to Roxas District, where I was going to return a book to my friend. As the streetsmart know, Morato and Roxas look like valleys, so to be caught in the middle of either street when it’s been raining – where it seems to dip like a valley – you will learn a lesson you’re not soon to forget.

But nothing beats the experience I had on España, on my way home from work to Quezon City. I was driving – slowly -- my faithful Volkswagen when, in front of the gates of my alma mater, the flood just rose and rose until the water was almost as high as the car’s door handle.

Praying to my guardian angel, I remembered what I had read in a newspaper article, that when caught in a flood, the driver should “keep pumping your brakes” – without stopping the car – to keep the water out. And it worked! I reached home without a scratch on the car nor an unwanted drop of water inside it.

Which goes to show that 1) it’s good to read the motoring page even if you’re neither a professional driver nor an amateur racer and 2) if you take care of your car, it will take care of you: maintenance, maintenance, maintenance!

With AI and technology driving today’s cars, driving is a pleasure, as long as one knows one’s limits. For example, driving at night and being challenged by motorcycle riders is not fun, not at all.