It’s been a year right down to the minute, I think.
You see, I was on my way home from Best Buy. I had gone there to get a Pearl Jam CD for myself and a CD case for my brother (he wanted to go with me, but I decided to be a dick and told him that he wasn’t allowed to ride in my car…ever (which, by the way, is a promise I’ve kept)). So I was driving down the south service road in the general direction of home. Actually, I was going to stop at someone’s house first, so taking the service road made sense (plus I really didn’t like the idea of merging at night; I had only been driving the little Bimmer for two and a half months).
So I was driving down the service road – still close to the mall – and a cop behind me turned his lights on, which was bad, because I was going about sixty in a…well, whatever the hell the service road is; I don’t remember, I haven’t been there for over a month. Anyway, it turns out that the pig was going after someone else, because he just went right around me. Even so, I slowed down to a mile or two over the speed limit.
A few minutes later, I was sitting at the light at the Cave Springs overpass (which, in my opinion, is the worst fucking stoplight in the world…do you have any idea how many people run red lights there? (the answer is: A LOT)). I got stuck there for a couple of lights, and then, instead of making a left turn like I normally would, I went straight through the intersection so I could make my little ‘pit stop’ before going home.
There was a car behind me, and I thought that he was possibly a little upset about the fact that I wasn’t speeding excessively because he was sorta close to my rear bumper. But instead of trying to piss him off, as I seem to do all the time (even though it tends to get me in ‘trouble’), which turned out to be a very good thing. “Why?” you ask. Here’s why:
As I was approaching the entrance to Remington Apartments (which was on my right; the highway was off to the left), a pizza guy was sitting there, waiting to make a turn. He rolled forward, and I thought, “Ummm…excuse me Mr. Stupid Pizza Guy, but I’m driving down this road at the speed limit, which happens to be well above zero miles per hour, so please don’t get in my way,” but then he stopped, which was a sigh of relief.
And then he pulled out. It was too late for me to stop, so I did all I could to swerve around him, but one can only do so much when there is oncoming traffic mere feet away. And then there was the collision. It hurt – threw me around – and I still don’t know how my head avoided the window. After a little bit of spinning, my little 320i ended up in the middle of the road, pointed in the other direction.
I didn’t piss myself, but it was that scary. In retrospect, I’m sure I was a little hysterical. I exited through the passenger door and then yelled at the guy who hit me (but I was yelling something along the lines of “Are you okay?”). And then, of all the people who could’ve shown up, Ashleigh Ditch did. Ashleigh Ditch whom I hadn’t seen since the previous May and whom I haven’t talked to since (I really did mean to send her a thank you card or something, but I didn’t have her address). She gave me a hug, some water, and a bag to put my stuff in, and then asked where my glasses were.
You see, I hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t wearing my glasses when I got out of my poor little car. I had no idea where they were. But it didn’t really matter, because the police were there and wanted to talk to me. I answered their questions, the damn pizza delivery boy answered their questions, and the guy behind me (who had stopped) answered their questions.
I found out later that the Domino’s guy said that:
1. He thought my headlights weren’t on. They were (thank you, guy behind me, for backing me up on that one).
2. He was making a right turn. There is NO WAY IN HELL anyone could call what he was doing an attempted right turn. First of all, I swerved way to the left and he still managed to run into me – no one drives straight to the yellow line and then turns the wheel way to the right to make a right turn. Secondly, the [minimal] damage to his car was all on the front right bumper. Think about it for a sec – the only way that could’ve happened would involve his wheels being turned to the left (or me turning my car around and running into him, which I sincerely felt like doing when I found out how he basically tried to blame the whole thing on me).
He was able to drive off. Like I said, damage to his car was slim to none. My car, however, had to be towed off. I did manage to find my glasses before they took it away, at least. Then I turned down a ride in the ambulance with those nice EMT people and went home with my dad, who, by the way, decided to YELL AT ME FOR THE ENTIRE RIDE HOME BECAUSE HE FIGURED THAT I WAS PLAYING WITH THE RADIO KNOBS OR ONE OF THOSE ‘TEENAGER THINGS’ AND HAD MANAGED TO MAKE THE PIZZA JERK RUN INTO ME. Did I mention that he was pissed? I just ignored him, though, and he went to bed when we got home.
My mom wanted me to go to the hospital (there weren’t any obvious injuries, but you never know), so we left to do that at about 10:30 or 11:00. But before we got there, I made her stop at the Ferrell’s so I could talk to Jennifer. I wanted to ask her about a government & politics assignment; I couldn’t remember whether or not it was due the next day (it wasn’t).
So we eventually made it to the emergency room, and I had to wait in a bed for quite some time. After waiting, tests, waiting, and waiting, the doctor told me that I had a sprained ankle and bruised kidneys, which wasn’t bad at all, considering that I was in a frickin’ CAR WRECK. I ended up back at home in bed maybe at 3:30-4:00ish.
The next morning, I bombed my College US History test (fuck you, Mr. Clark…I didn’t really get a chance to study). Also, my back hurt like a mug for the next month or so. And my car ended up being totaled (poor thing…I had just put some stickers on it, too). I mean, he hit me between the front right tire and the passenger door and just demolished the hell out of it. That whole section of the car was smashed into about half of its original size (yeah, by being a dick, I definitely saved my brother a lot of pain) and the front right tire was turned perpendicular to the rest of the car. Oh, and the windshield was shattered also.
And then there was American Family Insurance (his people). I put $2900 into that beast of a car; they gave me $2000. They also offered the exact amount of the medical bills as my ‘pain & suffering’ money. That obviously wasn’t acceptable – they had already screwed me out of $900 and my back friggin’ hurt – so I said no. I called that damn insurance lady at least once a week, but she never ever called back. It’s a year later and I still don’t have any of that money (and my parents are violently anti-lawyer). Plus I had to spend ten bucks and buy Melissa Lightfoot a replacement for a CD I had borrowed from her and was listening to at the time.
But none of that is the worst thing about the whole ordeal. The worst thing is the feeling I get when I drive by Remington Apartments – a very bitter, metallic feeling in my teeth – my teeth, of all places…it’s really that terrible, so I avoid that part of the service road as much as is possible.