Crunched Metal and Psycho Women

6/2/06



It was a dark and stormy night, and I was in a car wreck. Oh yes, dear readers, last night your intrepid reporter was involved in what can only be described as a vehicular cluster-fuck. This is one messed up story. I'm not privy to all the facts yet, but I think Hanni and I may have been hit by a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool, spiral-eyed lunatic.

Hanni was driving and the two of us were headed down National Ave on the way to subject our bodies to savage amounts of ultraviolet radiation via tanning bed, when out of the moist gloom burst a careening specter of a white car speeding merrily out of control as if piloted by demonic imps. The truck in front and beside us in the left lane had to swerve into the turning lane as this madman (it would turn out to be a mad woman) shot down his side of the street in the wrong direction. Apparently coming out of her diabetic coma, this Ahab of the internal combustion vehicle cut to the left to avoid the truck, squirted across both lanes and plowed directly into the front side portion of our car at better than 35 mph before rocketing away in a new and interesting direction like a psychotic pinball, leaving large chunks of her vehicle falling off in her wake like a perverse trail of breadcrumbs. There was no way we could have avoided being T-boned by this dizzy broad; it was as if she were a heat-seeking missile and we the broadside of a burning barn.

I believe my thoughts, as bright, white light filled the windscreen were, "oh crap, were going to be here forever. And I dont think were going to make it tanning." It was either that, or "OH FUCK!" I can't remember which, precisely.

Hanni's car was fucked. I mean "rode hard and put away wet" fucked. The entire front quarter-panel was rendered into Play-doh and her left front tire is now at a curious 45-degree angle into the car.

Neither of us was seriously injured, but Hanni's back and neck hurt like the dickens, considering the car impacted on her side. I got out and saw the white car who hit us was probably a block down the street, somewhat entangled in a throng of vehicles attempting to get around the carnage. We later discovered that this woman, who may or may not have procured her operator's license from the bottom of a Cracker Jack box, had been involved in a hit-and-run only a few minutes ago up by MSU campus. Not only that, after she hit us she, most likely in a further attempt to elude capture, hit a third car further down the street, which was the entanglement I saw as rain ran into my eyes and flashing emergency lights and sirens crested the hill.

All told the accident garnered three cop cars, two ambulances, and a fire truck, (I'd like points for not making an 'and a partridge in a pear tree' joke here) and all arrived in record time given that the whole fiasco occurred within throwing distance of St. John's Hospital. Hanni ended up going to the Emergency Room, which will probably end up being a nice $500 charge to transport her all of 100 yards. They even loaded her onto one of those comfortable as all hell back-board things, complete with neck brace, popularly seen being sported by accident con-artists on television. She ended up being alright, though she's pretty sore and stiff this morning. A quarter-ton of metal crunching into you at speed will do that, it seems.

The cops had a DWI and drug agent of the SPD come down and check the offending dame (whom I never actually laid eyes on, she had driven that far away from the accident) out and the biggest shock of the night came when we were told that Ms. Leadfoot was sober as a judge. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the woman with the driving skills of a blind turnip was unimpaired when crashing into one vehicle, leaving the scene of the crime, plowing into another vehicle (us) several miles down the road, and attempting to escape before rendered immobile by crashing into a third fucking car.

There has to be more to this story. I cannot accept that this person is simply this nuts. She had to have some fit or emotional breakdown or maybe psychotic religious epiphany while behind the wheel because short of having the BAC of Ernest Hemingway on a bender, I can't fathom how its physically possible to accomplish such a feat.

We never did make it to the tanning place.

On an up note, in less than 24 hours she and I will be winging our way westward toward sunny Cancun, Mexico, in a valiant attempt to drain the place of powerfully alcoholic fruity island drinks. We were going to take her car to catch our flight in St. Louis, but now it appears we might have to go by camel.

On a side note, yours truly will be out of the country until Sunday the 11th, so the blogs might be a little light next week. Do try to cope, gentle readers. I might post a few from down Mexico way, but don't count on it. Also, they might be incoherent, tequila-fueled stream-of-consciousness madness.

Adios, America! They sell Oxycontin down there, right?