I'd love to tell you that the title of this blog denotes a big posting about brushing your teeth with a new kind of toothpaste: deadly heroin broccoli semen-paste, but it's not going to be about that at all. Thankfully. (However, be on the lookout for THAT blog post in future episodes!!)
Instead, let me just take a second to explain how I almost died in a potential accident the other day.
Okay, so I might not have died, but I think I might have been seriously jacked up, at least. I need some light bulbs, so I decided to drive to Ingles. The Ingles on Merchants Drive is a seriously hilarious place. It seems like time has stopped every time I go in there... same high school cashiers, same weird cakes in the deli... some horrible magazine selection... same insane big-boned woman carrying cat litter. Man, what a store.
Anyway, I was on my way when I came up on this regularly-scheduled intersection. The light was green, so I wasn't slowing down. On the right side of the intersection is a gas station and main driveway of the gas station is directly beside the intersection.
So here's this car, pulling straight out in front of me.
Not only did the car pull out in my direction... this damn crazy person just came straight towards me, head-on, in my lane.
Needless to say, I locked 'em up and made that noise that every film sound editor loves to make. (You know, the same screeching tire noise they insert if the car is driving on pavement, mud, sand, snow, dirt, gravel or Godzilla's tongue in the Matthew Broderick movie.)
I slid pretty bad... and it was so crazy how everything was happening in slow-motion. The last serious wreck I had was back in 1998 when I violently rolled my awesome 1985 Toyota 4x4 by spinning off the road in some ice. That time, it was like mega-super fast. It was like Flash fast. Basically, what I'm trying to tell you is that the wreck happened so fast, that it could actually run on water. It could run on top of the water, bud. It happened that fast.
Anyway, this wreck was in slow-motion. The crazy woman's slow-mo, completely panicked and terrifying screaming face... looking up to make sure the light actually WAS green and I didn't run a damn red light... thinking in my brain:
"Yeah. I'm gonna hit this crazy bitch. Okay Matt, get settled. It's going to hurt, probably. The pain probably won't be excruciating if I'm knocked unconscious first. If I wake up on the pavement a few minutes later, go ahead and shit on yourself if you need to. Nobody's going to judge you, Matt, if you want to go ahead and crap your pants. If you feel the need to do that, buddy, just let it go, man."
Then I could see that I had some quick choices to make.
1. Do I swerve to the right?
2. Do I swerve to the left?
3. If I pull to the left of her, I might miss her grill and smash the hell out of her front bumper from the side... but her car looks really busted... so maybe I should just hit it head-on, knowing that the car will either be deflated like a floatation device or I'll drive up over her hood and do a sweet turbo-boost jump over the entire car, then go get my light bulbs?
So I went with the left side, and... by the grace of the Lord, she went to the right of me. So in this vicious game of chicken... we both came out winners. I slid my ass right up next to her car... I was so close that I could have reached out my passenger side window and tapped her hood with my finger... if I was Inspector Gadget and had extendable, badass metal arms with customizable attachments.
The coolest part is the direct aftermath. Here's a woman who's in my lane, facing oncoming traffic, completely oblivious to what she's doing... and she's going absolutely insane inside her vehicle because she thinks, somehow, this is my fault. I can see f-bomb after f-bomb being launched at my face with a maniac-bitch-catapult.
I just looked over my shoulder... back at the traffic light, and the damn thing was still green. All this happened so fast that it hadn't even changed yet. Apparently it was my fault?
Lesson learned, though, kids: I was so happy to be alive that I just winked at her, pointed at her (like a coach would point at a special-needs kid who just completed a swimming race) and drove on to get my light bulbs.
However, I did spend the rest of the entire day in a coma made of nervousness. I kept having this vision of crazy old women screaming at me, throwing light bulbs at my face and crotch.
... And the light bulbs were in the shape of cars.
... I also had a vision about Nannerpuss, too. Thank God for the little guy:
Glad to be alive, readers... and be on the lookout for that insane woman with the other old woman in the car with her. They're like a geriatric version of Thelma and Louise (...that is, if they didn't drive off the cliff at the end. Now, apparently, they're suicidal as ever... just living life on the edge... especially when they make trips to the gas station to buy more rolling papers.)
Yay for old people drivers who think they're either invulnerable or astronauts!!!!
-M
P.S. I could have called this a mile away about the elderly driving. For proof of this, go back in time and examine this post from back in November.
3 Comments:
Older drivers should have to pass another driver's test to renew!!!! I was hit by an old lady. I know how you felt while being yelled at like it WAS your fault!
I forgot about the 'stache.
last summer i was tooling down I-40 West just a mile or so before the West Hills exit when i see a car in the right-hand lane go airborne. i'm talking a Michael Bay 15 feet off the pavement end-over-end airborne. it was about 20 yards ahead of me. of us - 'cause every lane is packed and we're all doing 60 or 70 mph.
the car in the air did a roll to the right, and i was about to say 'whew' when i see it hit a massive concrete retaining wall and that sucker bounced back into the air and was about to land somewhere between the first two lanes. and it was flipping end over end. now it's about 10 yards away.
like you, i too accepted that i was going to soil my garments with some steaming hot fear. and just then every car on the road began to swirl in a hellish dance. since the car in front of me was about 6 feet away from my bumper, i swerved left even as i immediately recalled i had seen a car in that lane already. that wise soul however had already started swerving into the far left emergency lane so i inched between the car in front and beside me. and then i gunned my truck like a Duke of Hazzard. as i raced ahead i see the original flying car rolling and rolling down the road.
i did not stop until i reached my friend's house about 3 miles away, demanded xanax and vodka and i stayed there for three days.
fuck driving.
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