Life is a funny thing

As you might already know, I left on the 21st or 22nd of December to go visit my Mother and Father, the latter of which lives and is employed in Las Vegas, Nevada. My Mother had left to visit him a month prior and was still there. She planned to return home with me in early January, and stay with my Grandfather and I until March.

A couple of hours after writing my most recent post, concerning the holidays, I was transported to my Grandmother's residence, which exists about eight miles away from my own. There, I enjoyed a good time with her and my eldest uncle who had recently arrived by plane from his home in Massachusetts. During my stay, I received my presents from them early. My Grandmother paid to have my class ring resized, (Which I had ordered slightly too big) From my uncle I received one of those limited debit cards that you could charge money onto. Mine was for $100, which pleased me immensely.

The next day, they drove me to Jackson International Airport, were I awaited a delayed flight that would take me to Las Vegas. The flight was long and tiresome, during which I finished the remaining four hundred pages of "Brisingr" I had yet to read. After landing in a terminal that I was unfamiliar with, I wondered the airport quite lost for a good thirty minutes before I stumbled upon the baggage claim area, where my parents were waiting.

After reclaiming my bags, we headed off to my Father's house, where I was greeted by our seven and eight year old pugs, "Bully" and "Molly" The week I stayed there followed the same pattern it always did when I came over to visit : Wake up, Wait for Father to return from work, go to town and do stuff, eat, then return home and go to sleep.

Finally, Christmas day arrived. My list of presents was small, but that was mostly because I had asked for nothing. I was already content as I was. Well, there was ONE thing I wanted, but I didn't expect to get it. My list of presents included a few CDs, my favorite of which was "Pat Benatar's Greatest Hits," and the traditional "Stocking full of Reese's Pieces"

After all of my presents were unwrapped, my parents told me what I didn't expect, but wanted ever so badly to hear, "Son, your next present hasn't been bought yet, but we plan to get you your first car before we leave to go back home." I was overjoyed, but my joy quickly subsided when I realized that most "first cars" were junkers, and I would most likely receive some rolling turd from the 80s or early 90s.

As the days passed, we looked at and test drove a bunch of cars, all of which were nicer than I expected, but still not much to brag about. It was then that I saw it, : a silver 2002 Pontiac Firebird, and in practically mint condition, with a black leather interior and an awesome stereo system as I would later find out. We figured it would be out of our budget, but I wanted to test drive it anyway, so we pulled into the lot and got the keys from the salesman. The thing rode like a dream ; it was everything a guy could want in a vehicle. It's only flaw was that it had a small tear in the passenger seat about the size of a dime. After we returned from the test drive, my Father asked about the price, and to our astonishment it was only $5000. Needless to say, we bought it.

I named her Geundahlfrodt, which means nothing in particular, but I thought she should have an interesting name.

We immediately went off to buy accessories for the car, which included fuzzy dice to hang from the mirror, a GPS, and some of those little scented tree-things you put in the car to make it smell good. The next day (I was obviously a very happy chap during these whole proceedings) we got a bag and filled it full of vehicle gear like a tire-pressure gauge, a flashlight, and several cleaning wipes. I also spent most of my debit card to buy various CDs for the car as well.

The third day after getting my car, January 1, Mother and I decided it was time to start driving back home. According to the GPS, my Grandfather's house here in Mississippi was exactly 1741 miles away. We struck out at the crack of dawn and (Except for a terrible traffic jam on the Hoover Dam) The first day went without a hitch. The second day Mom let me drive. It was fine until the car stopped moving while on the interstate somewhere in New Mexico. I pulled over on the side of the road before the car went completely dead, and waited quietly (and angrily) as Mother phoned AAA, for a tow truck. The truck came after an hour or so, and I watched with horror as my car was fastened to the towing cable. To my great relief, the car was undamaged. We rode in the tow truck (The driver being a grizzled looking old guy of Spanish descent) to a town called Santa Rosa, were my car was deposited at a scary looking auto repair shop called "Bozo's Garage" (No lie) The place was filled with old derelict vehicles and was run by a bunch of people who looked exactly like the tow truck driver. It's never been my policy to discriminate, but I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't VERY displaced by what I saw. A mechanic came out and rummaged around under the hood for awhile, after which he informed us that the problem was a worn out fuel pump and belt tensioner. The fuel pump was most likely worn out due to the previous owner's habit of running the car on little to no gasoline, and the belt tensioner had just worn away with age. The mechanic informed us that it was easy to fix, but would be expensive, and we would have to stay overnight to wait for the parts to arrive. The mechanic loaned us an old car to use in the meantime, and we stayed overnight at a Comfort Inn.

The following morning, we went back to Bozo's to reclaim my car. The car was fixed and in pristine condition. The bill totaled $1299 which was obviously a scam, but there was little we could do about it, so we paid and went on our way, this time Mother was driving. That was yesterday morning. We drove for about nine hours, by which time we were outside Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. We were on the interstate going about seventy five miles per hour, in the middle of the night, when suddenly it happened...

A truck going much faster than us slammed right into the driver's door. I was reading at the time, and was caught completely off guard, with my seatbelt unfastened. Contrary to popular belief, a crash does not occur in slow-motion, nor does your life flash before your eyes. the force of the truck caused us to spin out of control, and we plopped right off of the side of the road, and down a ditch, which was at a steep incline, and was about twenty feet deep. I didn't even have time to be scared or scream or anything. I only remember thinking, "Oh s***..."

In my lifetime, fourteen family members have been killed in car crashes, five of which were younger than I am now. I don't know how many times the car rolled as we went down the hill, but I knew without a doubt that it was my time to die.

If there is a god, he obviously disagreed with me, or else I wouldn't be here right now. Anyway, the next thing I knew, the car was upside down, and I was on my hands and knees, on the ceiling of the car. I immediately looked over at my Mother (Who had the good sense to buckle herself in). It was pitch dark besides the lights coming off the gauges, but I could tell that she was suspended upside down by her seat belt. She was obviously in shock, but somehow I had remained calm through the whole ordeal.
I asked if she was okay, and she told me that she was, and that we needed to get out fast. She seemed to have trouble unhooking herself, but she managed to do so, meanwhile I tried to locate my door while sniffing for gas. Luckily, I smelled no gas, and eventually found the door, which I kicked open and crawled out of. By that time there was a bunch of people gathered around the car, and they were running hither and yon, trying to help Mother, who crawled out after me, already on the phone with 911. It was a pointless endeavor ; one of the people had already called called the authorities, who arrived minutes later with an ambulance close behind.

Mother was in shock, but somehow she was completely unhurt. Amazingly, I was unhurt myself, save for a few scratches along my right arm were I landed on the roof-window (which had broken out) Regardless, I was brought into the ambulance were they cleaned and dressed my little wounds, and informed me that we had been hit by a pickup-truck driven by a heavily intoxicated person. After I was all patched up, I exited the ambulance, to find my Mother sitting by our bags (which had been extricated from the vehicle) and she was giving her statement to the police. After checking again to see if she was fine, which she was, I glanced at what remained of my car. Bad mistake. I'd prefer not to go into details, but I'll say that the back window was the only one still intact, and the entire vehicle resembled an empty coke can that had been stepped on.

Despite having lost such an awesome car, I found it difficult to be sad. By all rights, both of us should have died right there. The car had crashed not five feet from a culvert. My cousin Toby had hit a culvert years before in a manner similar to us, and his face had been smashed in by the roof of the car and his ribs had all been destroyed. Needless to say, he died on the scene.

The rest of the night passed in a blur. We rode in a police cruiser to a hotel. During the ride, I learned that the drunk person who had nearly killed us was a woman named Terry who had been born in 1963. That's all the info I was able to find out. Anyway, we stayed at the hotel where I called havoc and everyone else I knew and told them what had happened. I took a shower, and watched Terminator 2, all the while just happy that Mother and I were still alive.

This morning, My uncle picked us up and drove us home. I just got back and figured that I might as well tell you all. We had insurance, and plan to sue the woman quite painfully. Our insurance plan states that it will refund the book price of the car, which happens to be much more than we paid, so everything should turn out fine.

There is a moral to this story... Well, four morals actually.

1. Wear your seatbelt... Seriously.

2. Have insurance. s*** happens.

3. Watch out for drunk drivers. They come from behind as well as the front.

4. Treasure each moment of your life. It could end at any moment.

Well, I hope you all had a better Christmas than I did. My seventeenth birthday is three days from now. For a few seconds, I thought I wouldn't get to see it...

Drunk drivers/drunk driving is very bad, I don't recommend drinking and driving. It's good to see you alive and well though Trigger, it would suck if you died.


EDIT: Also sucks about your car...but at least you were insured.

Thanks Pengy, and I agree. That would have sucked most ferociously.

Now that I think about it, there is a fifth moral.



If you drink, don't drive, and if you do, for the love of god have the sense not to drive on the frickin' interstate going 90 miles an hour, and trying to pass people while in a huge pick-up truck that could total anything smaller than an 18-wheeler.

If any good came out of this, it's that the drunkard that did it got caught before she could actually kill someone that night. Too bad drunk driving doesn't carry the death penalty...

I also recommend not eating Nachos in the car, and if you do, don't pick them up when they spill and you're doing 80 miles an hour...

...My older brother made that mistake, he had 2 broken ribs, and had to wear an eyepatch for a couple months!

My favorite drunk driving commercial.