Go Ahead, Ask Me About My Weekend...

It was supposed to be a pretty nice little Saturday actually. After two weeks plus of tooling around Athens in a 330,000+ mile Nissan (which my Dad keeps around for 98% sentimental reasons, and about 2% as emergency transportation) the Diesel was going to be operational again (the alternator went belly-up, and the front seat had split...and the passenger-side wiper needed an adjustment).

By lunchtime, she was good to go (note: yes, I refer to almost all cars--lemons and beaters that are about to croak anyway, plus pretty much any car I'm unlikely to be driving get excluded--by the feminine, third-person pronoun. If you're bored and want to read some sort of sexist attitude into this, knock yourself out. If you want to make obvious innuendos and automotive puns based on things like "driving" and "handling" and "driveshaft", knock yourself out. But I'm still going to do it.) There was a little football game that afternoon to see, and at some point I hoped to swing by Best Buy (Entourage season 2 on DVD for all of $14.99). These goals were accomplished.












("Discounts? Let's hug it out, bitch.")


The game, of course, went UGA's way (as it almost always does.)















So, even though not that many folks were back in town, I figured I needed to go downtown and celebrate by checking out some really kick ass bands at the 40 Watt.

And around 11ish I was on my way. After I passed under the 10 Loop on Lexington, I decided to myself that I would park at the North Deck, because it had been free parking on the UAB game weekend. And then a giant, new, burgandy Ford Expedition pulls out--about 25 feet or less--in front of me. And he's pretty clearly looking to his right or drunk, because he doesn't see me, and my brakes look up, and there's breaking glass, and I'm pinwheeling off a car parked near the liqour store across three lanes of traffic and...it's over.

There's a flash of blue lights. The Expedition takes off. I test the accelerator. It works. I pull off the road. There's glass from the passenger-side rear panel in the seat with me. There's a terrible, nails-on-chalkboard sound coming from the rear of the car as it's pulled off the road.

Other than some cuts, I seem to be ok (that's aderenaline for you.) No one else is hurt, and the cop's already on the scene. He saw the end of it but (and this is the part I register that sucks) he didn't get the Ford's tag #. He goes off to try and find him, another cop shows up and it gets sorted out that:
A. The guy leaving had come from the liqour store where he was bragging about his new car, and
B. He was probably drunk already
C. It wasn't my fault, but my insurance may take the hit if they can't find him. However
D. They do have survalence footage of what he looks like inside the store, and he's a semi-regular.
E. To prove I was in full control, I ace a breathalyzer test.
F. The Diesel is towed away.

And it had been a good holiday break up to that point. Thursday I probably ate near a lb. of deep-fried turkey (among other delicous foods). Extended family dinner for Thanksgiving didn't include the phrase "so who are you dating now?"

The tail end of Saturday night I was in a daze, and aided in falling asleep by talking to people on IM and drinking Johnny Walker Black (an odd combo I know, but when I tried just coming home and going to sleep, and found I was shaking, I figured I needed to A. drink and B. not feel like I was alone.)

Sunday was the worst: at some point I'd have to call my dad and tell him the car we'd spent days working on might be totaled...and worse, the key phrase from the previous night "there was nothing you could do" had had enough time to register.

At one point Sunday night I literally curled up, in a ball, on my floor with a blanket wrapped around me. "Nothing you can do" echoing in my head: if I had hit him, would my legs be broke, or would I be dead, and would there have been "nothing I could do" then? Let's say I swerve right (left sends me into oncoming traffic and forgive me for not trusting cars coming from downtown Athens on gameday to have the reflexes to avoid me), I jump a curb, likely pop at least one tire...do I escape unhurt? Does the popped tire send me back into traffic? It's helplessness and powerlessness defined, and I'd spent many many many years not ignoring the fact that yes, at any time I could wind up dead, but certainly avoiding the subject almost any time it popped into my head. Then Saturday night that reality came back and left my right rear tire at a funny angle to remind me.














(funny-shaped black triangle added to show angle.)

And it turns out I'm not 100%. It's Tuesday night when I write this and my right side--right shoulder and upper arm especially--are sore and throbbing like a mad bastard, and I've been popping Aleve like Tic-Tacs all day. I get the police report tomorrow, so here's hoping they caught the dirtbag.

(Note: once my arm/shoulder gets to feeling better, I've got quite a few updates to make...but this shit is literally painful to type for extended stretches right now.)