In Perspective?

Woe is me(and my wife).

I really shouldn't say that, because there are people in this world with real problems; famine, disease, poverty, bombs blowing up their social infrastructure, hemorrhoids etc...

Just indulge me this moment of self pity.

Woke up this moring to a smashed-in driver's side window of a Dodge Neon that my mother-in-law kindly lent us while our previously damaged car is getting fixed. To say the least, I am in a most foul mood - not the kind of mood that keeps me in a dark, T.V. lit room with empty pizza boxes, the uneaten crusts hard enough to cut glass, the complete Boulez catalogue looping over and over on my audio system - but the kind of mood that makes me volatile. Where just a casual sideways glance from a passerby might send me into a verbally violent tirade, capable of making the hardiest, insensitive factory worker fall to his knees and weep for redemption.

I must admit, it crossed my mind that this was an act of retaliation. But since I have no proof, I must assume that this was an act of random vandalism.

As a follow up to last week's auto accident, the young woman who caused the incident is now claiming that it wasn't her fault. Of course this is after she begged me not to file a police report(having no insurance and a suspended license), offered to pay for my damages on the spot with money earned by doing GOD KNOWS WHAT, openly admitted(as did both of her friends) that she was at fault, and threatened to thrust herself onto the freeway and commit suicide.

Apparently this young woman lost her previous car in the slew of flooding that took place out in Lake County a few weeks back. She then bought this other car and immediately cancelled the insurance policy after driving it off of the lot (why she did this, I can only speculate). Her "new" car has been deemed totaled, so suffice to say, she is in a very bad place - owing money on a car that's inoperable and probably facing some jail time for driving without insurance while under suspension - a very desparate situation indeed. As a fellow human being, I really do empathize with her situation. But that situation is the result of HER choices, not mine. Meanwhile, I will have no car for the forseeable future, and if and when it does get repaired, will probably be seriously flawed. We'll have to pay a deductible and our rates will go up. All because of someone else's irresponsibility.

Blah, blah, blah.

So I was thinking back on the past month. I have compiled a list of events that seem to suggest that my number in the cosmic bingo machine has come up:

1. I get surrounded by police 3 weeks ago while riding my bike in the pouring rain. I'm asked for identification, upon which one of the cops said to another, "no beard"...meaning: he's not the guy. Mistaken identity.

2. Our basement backs up with 3" of raw sewage, ruining 2 rugs, stinking up the joint and providing me with a weekends' worth of work bleaching and mopping fecal and urine debris.

3. The PC laptop that we use to do most of the mundane chores (my essay-grading job included) completely wigs out. It takes me two weeks to assess the situation, order the adapter that will allow me to port all of the important info to another computer, and get the whole thing up and running again. Cost(parts and lost wages)$200.

4. Irresponsible girl runs red light, which causes front-end damage and much ass-pain. Cost: yet to be determined.

5. Some cretin smashes my mother-in-law's window in while the car is on our watch. Cost:$165.00

Things are supposed to happen in 3s. Not 5s. I didn't even include getting pulled over for speeding, for which I unashamedly handed over my out-dated "courtesy" card, provided to me by my friend. Amount saved:$120.00. I'm viewing this as a break. Lucky me.


While my tendency is to view these series of events as a "doleful cloud" stubbornly following my every move, I was reminded by a friend that every one of these situations could have been worse. This is true. No one was hurt and most of the damage is purely financial. Money can be replaced. Not easily, but replaced never-the-less.

But I'm still gonna knock on mother-f*cking wood.

Fool Moon

Another auto accident.

This has become such a prominent theme throughout my driving life, that it almost warrants rigorous scientific study. It's become a sort of routine with me, that I would miss if discontinued.

Here's the scene:

I'm coming home late from a visit with an out-of-town friend. It's about 3am, a pleasant, cool and quiet summer evening. The kind of night that you think about in the middle of winter. I'm sort of hungry. Not ravenous, but hungry enough to have a roving eye for some late night, improper dietary choice that will most assuredly leave me feeling thick, acidic and disappointed by my lack of self-discipline. But nevertheless, there I was looking for that magical place between fast food and a sit-down diner (I'm thinking all-night gas station/mini-mart). This is important because it altered my usual route home, which would normally have been the empty freeway.

So, I'm cruising along on one of those roads that parallel the freeway, eventually morphing into an entrance ramp. As usual, this road is named "Marginal" for its relationship to the much more prominent highway. On the radio is "Coast to Coast", where there is an interesting discussion about how full moons affect human behavior (last night was a full moon, in case you didn't know).

I'm not kidding about this.

As I passed through the green-light intersection of W. 100th and N. Marginal, a green sedan suddenly appeared in front of my car. Unlike other right angle accidents that I have been involved in, I was denied a sufficient glance at the driver's face in the moment just before impact. This is a splendid moment; the expression of fear competing with surprise is both horrifying and comical. Had I been able to see my own face, it would have had an expression that said:

Oh man, not again. What have I done to deserve this kind of misfortune? Did I mistreat someone with supernatural powers? Do I really have any control over my life? How much will this cost me? Will it hurt? I'm really glad my beloved dog is not in the car, only to become a 45lb projectile. Is there a child in that other car? Is there some greater cosmic cause for which I am but a spoke in the wheel?

Anyway, I tried to stop but it was futile and so I braced for impact.

PAAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My car stalled, smack dab in the middle of the intersection, the lights and radio proceeding on with their previously assigned duties. The other car stopped and turned around, resting to an uncomfortable stop with the rear driver-side wheel up on the curb. The first thing I did was try to move my arms and legs to see if there was any damage. Satisfied with my findings, I tried to get out of the car but...oops, that door doesn't work anymore. Front-end damage compression. At this point three young ladies get out of the other car, frantic, one of them asking if I'm OK and another asking if I'm going to shoot them. I assured them that I was OK and didn't have a gun.

Once I finally got out of the car, the girls were upon me, the driver frantically begging me not to call the police because she didn't have insurance, and was driving with a suspended license and would surely go to jail. They were strippers the one assured me, and could pay me on the spot for any damage to my car.

Thank Gawd!

Now I don't want to seem mean and misogynistic, but over the years I've made my way to a few strip bars. By the looks of these gals, I VERY MUCH DOUBT that they had enough money on them collectively to pay for the work my car is going to need. My guess is that they worked in one of those small local beer joints that also have dancin' girls, mostly frequented by working class folks and the occasional suburban college kid who feels a lack of authenticity and is into slummin'.

I know this, cuz that was me 15 years ago...

Anyway, I immediately took charge of the situation and said, "I'm really sorry but I've been through this several times before, and it's really best to make the 911 call"-of the many good reasons to do this, getting stuck with false information was foremost on my mind. This of course sent this young woman into "dramatic arrest" loudly proclaiming that she was going to walk up to the freeway and kill herself.

Awe Jesus.

Regardless, I made the call. There was some confusion on the dispatcher's part as to my exact location. There was no W.100th and N. Marginal on her map. I assured her that it really did exist and that I was literally standing under the mother-f*cking sign.

While I was making this call (and a few back and forths with my wife), one of the girls (cute, but in that trashy sort of way that suggests a bountiful history of drinking, smoking, too much T.V., lazy upbringing and a general dysfunctional environment) kept coming up to me, trying to sweet talk me and get me to change my mind. At one point she actually asked me what my sign was. I gather that this girl is used to getting her way with boys, acting friendly, helpless and harmless in order to manipulate weak, attention-starved men. This kind of behavior has always had a completely opposite effect on me. Almost violently. I could feel my blood start to boil. The cops still had not shown up, I'm standing in the middle of a g*ddamn intersection with my car emitting a very strong acrid odor, the driver won't shut up about her desperate situation, and this annoying little girl is asking me all kinds of stupid banal questions. I really thought I might start making bad choices.

Thank God, my wife kept calling to check up on me. This calmed me down and focused my attention on the task at hand, which was getting the cops to show up. Apparently, this was an "uncommonly busy Wednesday evening".

When they did get there (about 45 minutes later), they were very cool and handled the situation in a very professional manner. Considering this was Cleveland, they probably viewed this as a "break in the action". After I gave them all of the important information, they said if my car was operable, I could go. While the car started and was reasonably functional, there was definitely something "critically erroneous" going on under the hood. I'll be interested to find out what sort of internal damage was done. If you've ever had a car with front-end collision damage, you know that they are never the same again. Things get move a few centimeters out of alignment and it becomes a domino effect.

Thankfully, nobody was seriously injured. That would have been a very bad scene indeed. There were no kids or loose pets in the car. Just three silly young girls who might learn something from this...but probably not.


Morale of the story:

Don't make bad dietary decisions when there is a full moon.

p.s. I never did get anything to eat...went to bed hungry and pissed.