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LuLu's Land of the Fey

All the news that bores the pants off anyone who cares.

Saturday, September 20, 2003

Irony Fairies Never Rest

"We don't want an arm and a leg, just all your tows!"

That's the slogan of the tow truck company that carried off my Taurus tonight after I had a wreck coming home from work.

It all started a few days ago when Robert and I decided that since he had the longer drive to and from work, he should be driving the Tiburon, as it gets better gas milage. Therefore, I got to drive the Taurus, a nice, safe, dependable car. I hadn't given too much thought to the car change, aside from the occasional question from my students about it. "How come you don't be driving your tight ride no more, Miss Brown?" I'm not too much of a car person; as long as the vehicle gets me from point A to point B, I'm a happy camper.

I worked late tonight, supervising my Art Club's face painting booth at the football game. Similar to my disinterest in cars, I'm not overly enamored of football, but the kids like to work at the games, and quite frankly, we make pretty good money from all the children wanting paw prints, footballs and boyfriend's jersey numbers painted on their cheeks. We worked through the first three minutes of the fourth quarter, at which time I decided noone else was going to come and give us money anymore. Since we do this pretty regularly, I have my kids trained in the cleanup pretty well, so they had the whole booth packed and ready for me to leave in about ten minutes. And since I wanted to beat the cars coming out at the end of the game, I decided to hit the road. Literally.

But first I had to stop and get gas. I had been munchy all day, and was in my carb craving mode. Bad Amy. Bad, bad Amy. I decided to get some chips to eat on the way home, thinking that I could finish them well before reaching home and hide the bag somewhere to cover the evidence.

I'm driving down Highway 80, going at a modest 60 mph, a full 5 miles under the speed limit, thinking about how great I am and how great the chips are. I pass a car that gives me the "Hey, there's a cop ahead" light blinking thing. I think for a second how rarely I see cops on Hwy. 80, and then dismiss the thought. Then I come over the hill and I see a cop with his lights flashing. Thinking he has pulled over some sucker, I slow a bit out of courtesy and continue at my almost at speed limit speed.

Then I notice that there's a flashlight waving. Clue number one.

Then I notice there's a big thing in the middle of the road. Clue number two.

Then I notice the big thing in the middle of the road isn't moving. Oh fuck. Clue number three.

I hit the brakes, which promptly locked up and slid (anti-lock brakes, my ass) at about 45 mph(by my guess), or so, into a big ass dead tree in the middle of the road. Apparently, the cop who was on the side of the road hit it before me. Looking at his car, you could barely tell. Looking at mine, however, you could see through the new window into the radiator, or as I like to call it now, the boat anchor. I can only imagine what would have happened if I had driven my plastic Tiburon into it; I'd probably be in the hospital right now.

Reflecting on this, I'm a bit surprised at my sense of calm during this whole thing. The air bag didn't deploy, I didn't yank the wheel to one side or another, and the damage to my car (so far as we can tell) is pretty minimal. Emotionally, I was a bit shaken, but physically, I was just fine. The thing that pissed me off most (aside from having to pay a $500 deductible) was that every rubber-necker in East Texas (and apparently, there are quite a few) saw me eating the chips that I was not supposed to be eating.

So the moral of the story is this: if you're going to cheat on your diet and eat something that has the nutritional value of Drano, be prepared because everyone and his cow is going to see you do it.

.: posted by amy 12:49 AM