Car Crash, Crackheads, and Complications Pt. 1
I can't believe it's been a whole week since I've written a blog. I was getting pretty regular.
So---Car crash. Last Sunday was Scott's sister's birthday. I bought some goodies at Iguana (best gift store EVER) and we spent the evening over there. Todd had made a mound of spaghetti family style. Various friend brought brews over, I had a few with them. Scott decided it was time to go when they broke out the poker table about 8:30pm. I was bummed, I love to play cards. I don't win, but I still love to compete. A minor ass kicking is just as much fun as winning the whole pot. I live to scrape all the chips to my pile, even if it's only like four of them. Scott needed to work ass early in the morning, we exchanged kisses and hugs with everyone then took off. Scott suggested we drive PCH home. We motored to Newport Drive, and hopped on PCH for the ocean view back to Long Beach. The highway was pretty dead until we got to Huntington. There were a few cars around us when we approached the Ninth street light. I was driving in the left lane (all the better to see the ocean with, my dear) when the lead car in the middle lane next to me, flicked on their left blinker and hit the brakes.
My first reaction: "Oh god, please don't, please don't you fucking idiot!"
My second reaction: "Shit."
I shit you not, the car beside us took a hard left to flip a u-turn on PCH at this light. The three cars behind it hit their brakes, and I had nowhere to go. I had hit my brakes when I saw their brakes go on, there was nowhere to go and nothing for me to do other than stand on my brakes and wait for the inevitable crunch of us nailing the side of their car.
Amazingly after the crash, we both were able to drive our cars to the curb to exchange info. I was so pissed. Scott just bought me a car stereo for Yule. The stereo I used have was the original company issue. It was 13 years old, the CD player didn't work, the display was all 8s when it was working, and the volume on/off knob was getting dodgy, so I needed a new stereo. We dropped about $400 for the stereo, the speakers, and the install. And now this idiot on wheels just totaled my car. DOUCHEBAG! (I quote my dear friend Jenn)
When they pulled away from the accident, I was sure they were going to do a runner. I started to memorize their plate number. I may have had four beers at Mel's house, but I was sober as a judge. I still didn't want to deal with doing the drunk dance for some cop after T-boning this clown. Luckily they didn't drive off, but the outcome would have been the same. Their insurance was shit. Always know that if someone hands you a sheaf of papers instead a tiny white card after a car accident, call the cops, because you are fucked. They got it at some insurance mega mart, and the paper is more valuable than the insurance.
When we stopped. I kicked open my door and jumped out.
"You have to give people time to stop if you're going to pull stupid shit like that on a highway!" I shouted.
I thought it was pretty tame, too! Scott whispered, "Now don't get hysterical."
Hysterical! Hysterical! When I'm howling my prehistoric war cry with that idiot's intestines clenched in my fists, you'll know I'm hysterical. If I'm shouting at some lower primate who couldn't find their baboon ass with both hands, I'm just miffed. (This is in no way a racial monkey allusion, this is a Darwinian 'you stupid fuck!' allusion)
The idiots were a pair of 909ers(seriously, it was their area code). I've tried over the years to ignore the California beach town prejudice against Riverside, but I have to give in. They are a bunch of tweaker white trash idiots. These two were classic. The woman was moaning:
"Oh I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I knew when I did it. Are you okay? You wouldn't believe how crazy my day has been. yada yada yada...mumbly excuse, mumbly excuse, how am I going to get to work tomorrow. Woe is me, weep, weep, weep."
The guy was posturing, "You have insurance right? Wow, you really plowed into us. You got a pen. We need your information. Look you're shivering. Are you okay? Can you drive?"
What that numb nutts failed to realize is I was trembling from repressed homicidal rage. I'd been through this two years ago when some brain dead little college twerp took an unprotected left in front of me and almost totaled my car. WE had to pay a $500 deductible that took months to get back and I had to deal with not having a car for a week, and we almost lost my car, because it would have been more expensive to fix it than pay us out.
I muttered at Scott. "You deal with them. I'm going to wipe down the car."
I grabbed a roll of paper towels I keep in my trunk for chair massages and started cleaning my steering wheel and dash. When we hit them, I'd had an iced drink in my hand that shot straight up and covered me and the driver's side with Diet Dr Pepper and ice. Yes I was pissed. Stone cold shivering pissed. Scott was smoking a cigarette and listening to the chick's puke boyfriend try and make the wreck our fault somehow. Scott kept nodding and saying:
"Yeah, but you did a u turn from the middle lane, so what the fuck, man?"
The guy would sigh and start explaining again with tweaker logic, why we should have been able to stop. Scott glanced over at me. The chick was on the phone with her work gabbling about how she didn't know if she was going to make it into work that morning. I took a picture with my phone of her license plate, her driver's license, and her insurance. They couldn't get their shit together enough to write down my info, so I took a picture of my insurance card and driver's license and texted it to her boyfriend. They apologized and waved cheerfully before hopping into their twisted clunker and driving it, squeaking and moaning, away.
The next morning I get a text asking me to email the picture of my info to her. So, I did. That afternoon I got two calls from her boyfriend, 5 minutes apart, the second call, he threatened me with the cops for non-compliance. I called him back two hours later, and told him I'd been as compliant as I planned on being. The insurance companies had our info, and if he called me again, he and his little pop tart were going to be in a world of legal hurt. He tried to be all cheerful and bullshit drug addict at me about 'oh he was just trying to help her get my info, and he didn't want me just disappearing on them'
He had probably talked himself into believing they were going to get an insurance check out of this, so he was all excited and stupid about the little baggie of low grade toilet cleaner and baby laxative they were going to buy with it. Arghh! Tweakers suck! I find the older I get, the easier it is to recognize tweaker bullshit logic. I'm over the weaselly ingratiating attitude. When someone gives me that cheesy grin these days and launches into some practiced speech about how hard their life is at the moment, I really want to cut them...bad.
"Oh wow! Your life does suck, everyone IS coming down on you. Oh look, now you're bleeding profusely. Yep, things sure aren't looking up for you, are they?"
Then I remember you can't shiv someone just cause they are fucking useless.
So---Car crash. Last Sunday was Scott's sister's birthday. I bought some goodies at Iguana (best gift store EVER) and we spent the evening over there. Todd had made a mound of spaghetti family style. Various friend brought brews over, I had a few with them. Scott decided it was time to go when they broke out the poker table about 8:30pm. I was bummed, I love to play cards. I don't win, but I still love to compete. A minor ass kicking is just as much fun as winning the whole pot. I live to scrape all the chips to my pile, even if it's only like four of them. Scott needed to work ass early in the morning, we exchanged kisses and hugs with everyone then took off. Scott suggested we drive PCH home. We motored to Newport Drive, and hopped on PCH for the ocean view back to Long Beach. The highway was pretty dead until we got to Huntington. There were a few cars around us when we approached the Ninth street light. I was driving in the left lane (all the better to see the ocean with, my dear) when the lead car in the middle lane next to me, flicked on their left blinker and hit the brakes.
My first reaction: "Oh god, please don't, please don't you fucking idiot!"
My second reaction: "Shit."
I shit you not, the car beside us took a hard left to flip a u-turn on PCH at this light. The three cars behind it hit their brakes, and I had nowhere to go. I had hit my brakes when I saw their brakes go on, there was nowhere to go and nothing for me to do other than stand on my brakes and wait for the inevitable crunch of us nailing the side of their car.
Amazingly after the crash, we both were able to drive our cars to the curb to exchange info. I was so pissed. Scott just bought me a car stereo for Yule. The stereo I used have was the original company issue. It was 13 years old, the CD player didn't work, the display was all 8s when it was working, and the volume on/off knob was getting dodgy, so I needed a new stereo. We dropped about $400 for the stereo, the speakers, and the install. And now this idiot on wheels just totaled my car. DOUCHEBAG! (I quote my dear friend Jenn)
When they pulled away from the accident, I was sure they were going to do a runner. I started to memorize their plate number. I may have had four beers at Mel's house, but I was sober as a judge. I still didn't want to deal with doing the drunk dance for some cop after T-boning this clown. Luckily they didn't drive off, but the outcome would have been the same. Their insurance was shit. Always know that if someone hands you a sheaf of papers instead a tiny white card after a car accident, call the cops, because you are fucked. They got it at some insurance mega mart, and the paper is more valuable than the insurance.
When we stopped. I kicked open my door and jumped out.
"You have to give people time to stop if you're going to pull stupid shit like that on a highway!" I shouted.
I thought it was pretty tame, too! Scott whispered, "Now don't get hysterical."
Hysterical! Hysterical! When I'm howling my prehistoric war cry with that idiot's intestines clenched in my fists, you'll know I'm hysterical. If I'm shouting at some lower primate who couldn't find their baboon ass with both hands, I'm just miffed. (This is in no way a racial monkey allusion, this is a Darwinian 'you stupid fuck!' allusion)
The idiots were a pair of 909ers(seriously, it was their area code). I've tried over the years to ignore the California beach town prejudice against Riverside, but I have to give in. They are a bunch of tweaker white trash idiots. These two were classic. The woman was moaning:
"Oh I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I knew when I did it. Are you okay? You wouldn't believe how crazy my day has been. yada yada yada...mumbly excuse, mumbly excuse, how am I going to get to work tomorrow. Woe is me, weep, weep, weep."
The guy was posturing, "You have insurance right? Wow, you really plowed into us. You got a pen. We need your information. Look you're shivering. Are you okay? Can you drive?"
What that numb nutts failed to realize is I was trembling from repressed homicidal rage. I'd been through this two years ago when some brain dead little college twerp took an unprotected left in front of me and almost totaled my car. WE had to pay a $500 deductible that took months to get back and I had to deal with not having a car for a week, and we almost lost my car, because it would have been more expensive to fix it than pay us out.
I muttered at Scott. "You deal with them. I'm going to wipe down the car."
I grabbed a roll of paper towels I keep in my trunk for chair massages and started cleaning my steering wheel and dash. When we hit them, I'd had an iced drink in my hand that shot straight up and covered me and the driver's side with Diet Dr Pepper and ice. Yes I was pissed. Stone cold shivering pissed. Scott was smoking a cigarette and listening to the chick's puke boyfriend try and make the wreck our fault somehow. Scott kept nodding and saying:
"Yeah, but you did a u turn from the middle lane, so what the fuck, man?"
The guy would sigh and start explaining again with tweaker logic, why we should have been able to stop. Scott glanced over at me. The chick was on the phone with her work gabbling about how she didn't know if she was going to make it into work that morning. I took a picture with my phone of her license plate, her driver's license, and her insurance. They couldn't get their shit together enough to write down my info, so I took a picture of my insurance card and driver's license and texted it to her boyfriend. They apologized and waved cheerfully before hopping into their twisted clunker and driving it, squeaking and moaning, away.
The next morning I get a text asking me to email the picture of my info to her. So, I did. That afternoon I got two calls from her boyfriend, 5 minutes apart, the second call, he threatened me with the cops for non-compliance. I called him back two hours later, and told him I'd been as compliant as I planned on being. The insurance companies had our info, and if he called me again, he and his little pop tart were going to be in a world of legal hurt. He tried to be all cheerful and bullshit drug addict at me about 'oh he was just trying to help her get my info, and he didn't want me just disappearing on them'
He had probably talked himself into believing they were going to get an insurance check out of this, so he was all excited and stupid about the little baggie of low grade toilet cleaner and baby laxative they were going to buy with it. Arghh! Tweakers suck! I find the older I get, the easier it is to recognize tweaker bullshit logic. I'm over the weaselly ingratiating attitude. When someone gives me that cheesy grin these days and launches into some practiced speech about how hard their life is at the moment, I really want to cut them...bad.
"Oh wow! Your life does suck, everyone IS coming down on you. Oh look, now you're bleeding profusely. Yep, things sure aren't looking up for you, are they?"
Then I remember you can't shiv someone just cause they are fucking useless.
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