OR......"My lucky penny was defective!!"
I got rear-ended today by a guy named Angel......a week before Christmas. How's that for irony?
I'm OK, right now. I think. My neck and shoulders are feeling a bit stiff so we'll see how I feel in the morning. Rupert is OK, too. I think. He's got a few white paint scuffs and the edge of the tailpipe is slightly bent but who knows what's underneath the bumper? The guy whacked me pretty hard.... or so it felt!
The thing that really gets me, though, is the area in which this incident happened. More often than not, I've said that this stretch of road (Eisenhower Dr., between Abercorn St. and Hodgson Memorial) needs a turn lane. There's two lanes with no "suicide lane" in between. It's a very dangerous area - as Tal can attest. In fact, mere seconds before I got hit there were two cars sitting in the eastbound lane facing west as if they were in a turn lane, trying to get into the lane I was driving in and there was a car coming toward them! And then while I was sitting in the parking lot where we'd pulled over to, waiting for a police officer, there were nearly two more accidents! Will someone need to get killed before they do something?
There was a man in front of me in a red truck, I saw him turn his left signal on and brake. I slowed and had just come to a stop when I hear SCREEECH....SCREECH.....BAM! Yeah, there were two screeches. Angel said that when he braked, the van he was driving wouldn't stop and slid. He was towing a utility trailer and I'll betcha that didn't help. Been there, done that before!
(When I was about 11-12 my family and I were on a vacation and were towing a small camper behind our truck. It was raining (wasn't raining today - BTW) and we were about to go through an intersection when the light changed. Daddy tried to brake, but the trailer pushed us right on through the intersection. Scared the crap out of all of us.).
Before this all happened, I had just left work and was walking across the parking lot to Rupert when I spotted a heads-up penny on the ground and picked it up. If I'd only known......
Seraphim "Where's my neck brace?!?!" Wells
Walking Each Other Home
1 year ago
1 high-fives:
Both you and Rupert are hardy creatures. That said, I'm concerned this might be one of those "it-doesn't-seem-so-bad-at-a-glance-but-underneath-is-where-the-real-damage-is" problems. Seems that van's main impact was underneath the bumper, hence the tailpipe nick ... and - most importantly - as for YOU, when you read this (after you get into work), are you still sore?
I cannot get that "Arrowhead Clinic" commercial out of my head, though. "ACCIDENT? YOU SHOULD MAKE TWO PHONE CALLS - FIRST, TO THE POLICE ... THE SECOND, TO ARROWHEAD CLINIC!!"
Gawd, I hope not.
What has me worried is, this afternoon while at Wally World I bought a Diet Mtn. Dew out of the vending machine, I saw a penny on the floor. Heads up. I picked it up as I reached down for my carbonated payload.
The soda didn't poison me, and I didn't get into a wreck on the way back home.
--Talmadge "How long does a penny hex last?" Gleck
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