10 years. One hell of a decade.
Ten years ago this afternoon I was hit by an 18-wheeler as I left school. It was a blizzard, gravel under the slushy onramp, and SPIN I’m in the centre lane and TRUCK. The world dropped away as I turned right and realized I would have no more dates with cute brunettes and THUD the back of my car hit the trailer and stopped the spinning and I slowly… coasted… to a stop against the concrete median.
Get out, lock the door, walk to the truck driver who’s pulled over to the median and is in a total panic, screaming at me in an accent so thick I can barely tell he’s speaking French, but I gradually make him understand that I’m all right, that nobody else was in the car, and that yes, I’m not injured. The car is a wreck, but only the next day do I realize that I chipped a tooth. (I’d been singing along with Living Color and my jaw snapped shut at the initial impact.)
Along comes a tow truck, who asks me to start the car and drive it off. “Excuse me Mac, but you see this big missing area? This gap the length of my arm? That’s where the battery was.” He eventually moves my car so it’s not perpendicular to traffic, but we’re still along the left-hand shoulder of a 3-lane 100kmh highway.
Then along come the police, two officers who look at the scene, talk to the tow truck driver, talk to the driver of the 18-wheeler, and drive up the road and cross to the right-hand lane. Then I realize the 18-wheeler and the tow truck are doing the same thing, abandoning me on the median of the highway. During a blizzard. While traffic is doing 100 kmh on either side of me.
Have you ever played in traffic? I have. Then I got chastised by police officers for crossing a highway on foot during a blizzard. That’s right, the first words I hear from authority after being swatted by a giant truck aren’t “Are you okay?” or “Have you been injured?” I get to hear “Eh, salaud, tu devrait pas marche sur la Transcanadienne.” (Translation: Hey bastard, don’t run across the highway.)
Then they hand me a card and drive off, without asking me any questions. Okay, they asked me questions for about three minutes, but after determining that I wasn’t hurt they pretty much weren’t interested anymore. They kicked me out of their car and talked to the driver of the 18-wheeler for 15 minutes, leaving me to shiver on the side of the highway, then drove off, as did the 18-wheeler. I managed to convince the tow truck driver to give me a lift to my exit of the highway, and he actually drove me the extra two minutes to my home to drop me off.
That night was pretty fun at home. My dad walks in, finds out that I’ve been in an accident, sees me standing there and screams, “I’ve been telling you to change that bald tire all week! If you had…”
At this point I saw the need to interrupt my loving, doting father. He’s a nice guy, really he is, if a little thick-headed at times. And besides, “I CHANGED THE TIRE THIS FUCKING MORNING!”
Dad instantly looked a little sheepish. It changes you to see your dad humbled by your own words, it really does. That and knowing that I just averted a lifetime of ‘I-told-you-soes’.
And that, my friends, is how I managed to borrow my dad’s car to drive to a dinner date after my car was wrecked during a blizzard.
I was gonna write about the past decade, how great it’s been, all the amazing things I’ve seen (the internet!) and done (gone swimming in the Pacific!) , and the incredible people I’ve met (my wife!), but this seems better somehow. Live your life folks, it can end in a flash 