I am always surprised by the sound two cars make when they try to share the same coordinates in space and time. It’s a BANG, not a CRASH. The word crash is too gentle, and too long-lasting. Crash ends with a shush, much too peaceful for the meaning, particularly when applied to large chunks of metal colliding. Cars don’t crash. They BANG. Begins and ends before you realize what’s happening and all your brain can come up with is, “NO.”
The good:
It so far seems like the guy’s insurance is covering it and making my life easy(ish) (KNOCK WOOD).
I’m relatively unharmed and my foot that got shoved under the gas pedal is gonna heal just fine.
The kids weren’t with me.
My frappuccino didn’t spill. Although I left it in the car until my car was actually being loaded onto the flatbed because it just felt too First World to be calling the highway patrol with a frappuccino in my shaky hand.
The less good:
My car may take up to four weeks to fix. And while rental cars are novel in some ways (and while this one is like brand-spanking new which smells nice), I really just want my car back. I used to grumble about back-up cameras and how they were stupid but I was so wrong and I want mine back. So I can back up.
The accident also seems to have sort of kick-started my anxiety again. I mean, to be honest, it was lurking there, threatening, for awhile now. But this is a little different. My emotions aren’t necessarily connected to my anxiety which is a new thing for me, and I wake up with unconnected feelings of anxiety at nights now. I don’t really know how to handle that. Except to watch a lot of Scrubs. Which is mostly okay except for the few episodes which convince me I’m dying and I have to remind myself that this is a sitcom and not actually a diagnosis.
Last week was ridiculously difficult to get through. It was already going to be busy, but then I wound up having to deal with various accident-related issues for hours and hours on top of the good stuff like birthdays and the tour of the public television station (Steven Keaton shout-out!). I actually thought that if I had to do one more thing I would literally turn into butterflies like Movie Voldemort did at the end of Deathly Hallows. And then the anxiety was there, complicating things. I couldn’t keep my attention on things, and I forgot details and the poor insurance adjusters had to remind me like six times to scan a copy of the receipt for the new booster seat. It took me literally half an hour of being lost to finally find my way to KPBS. I was late to everything by at least 20 minutes. Perhaps as evidence of what I am trying to express here, I have forgotten what the point of this paragraph was. Except maybe to brag about how I got to tour the PBS station here. Cause I did. In case you missed that detail.
Oh I think my point was just that I barely functioned last week. I was a huge mess. I’m still up and down. And I’m so sick of the word “depression”. I feel like I should have new and exciting problems rather than the same old ones that bore everyone to death. Basically, I feel like I’m terrible at picking problems to have? I don’t know. I’m becoming incoherent and I have two weeks of school to do this week. You know what helps depression? NOT SOCIOLOGY. People are the absolute worst. But that’s what I’m going to do now.
I was talking to a friend and telling her that this is the third time that this has happened to me. I mean, the third time I’ve been rear-ended and it was a big enough deal to go through insurance. She has not, apparently, had the same experience. So the question is, am I a magnet? What is a normal amount of times to be rear-ended? Readers, I need your answers.
I’ve been rear-ended more than three times. Or, my cars have been hit more than three times. I am not awake enough to remember how many of them were rear-endings. Most of them happened in a three-ish year period in the late 90s. I have no idea what normal is.
The first year I drove I hit/got hit by SO MANY THINGS. What the hell with the late 90’s?
I was rear-ended at least four or five times in the early 90s and had to do insurance-related stuff. I feel like it’s probably happened a time or two since then, too, but it’s late and my brain isn’t giving me the pertinent details so I might be imagining those.
I’d like to point out that you didn’t CHOOSE any of your problems. They just happened. Having more widely-varied and interesting problems would not necessarily be a good thing. (Also, I love you and am sorry you’re tired of depression. Depression can be such a boring wanker, though, so I totally get that. Note that it’s the DEPRESSION that is the boring wanker, NOT YOU.)
Finally, I am going to be giggling for five years because your opening paragraph made me nod in agreement and think, “We shouldn’t call them car crashes, we should call them car bangs,” and then I imagined two cars having sex and yes hello I am 12 years old.
Two cars doing it, heh heh heh.
I am always calling them car bangs from now on. And then when people ask my why I’m giggling I’m gonna giggle even more.
I’ve been rear ended twice, had 2 cars erupt into spontaneous flames (one causing a very sexy police officer (are there such things IRL not just on TV?) to dive into the back seat for an empty car seat and totally bum out that he wasn’t a hero that day. I have also been banged by many deer. On the other hand I have never rear ended anyone, hit a deer head on, or set any fires. I have gotten multiple speeding tickets for going …oh….47 mph. My latest triumph was getting a ticket for failing to yield on a left turn when i was going 5 mph in the middle of an intersection and banged by someone running the light.
I’ve been rear ended once, that was my only car accident so far. I’ve come close a few more times. And pretty much every time I have to stop and the person behind me is still moving when I stop I tense up waiting for them to hit me.
I don’t do a lot of driving though, so I’m not an accurate gauge of “normal”. If there is such a thing.
My cars haven’t banged in years. I do hope they continue their prudish ways.
The last time we were involved in an accident, (Bernix was alone) it ended in court like a year or two after the fact. It was traumatizing.
Have I told you about the time I took a nap in the backseat of a Samurai and woke up midair as we were falling into the thankfully not empty and boulder filled side of a, uh, well… we landed in water and the car was sinking and I’m not even a little bit over that even though it was over 20 years ago. Also. What the fuck with things being over twenty years ago? How is that possible?
Slightly unrelated but totally related. I had a dream about car bangs. Giant banging pile ups. And then I wake up and see this.
I was gonna say more but clearly I need coffee because all your other words about people are jumbling in my brain.
I love you and most of the other people suck. But you get that and it makes me like you even more.
Holy shit, Yara. Just. Gah.