I Bet/Hope I Couldn’t Do That Again

It started out a nice normal day in my world.  I took the clothes to the laundromat and threw them in to wash, drove over to get my work and was heading back to put my clothes into the dryer.  Just as I stopped before exiting the parking lot, I pushed the clutch pedal down and it went to the floor, didn’t come back up and the car stalled.  Anyone who is familiar with 4 and 5-speed vehicles knows this is not good, including the mechanically disinclined me.  My VW wouldn’t budge and I was partially blocking traffic.  After putting on the emergency brake and the hazard lights, I walked back and talked with two men who tried to explain to the dumb greying brunette what happened and that it needed to be towed.  Well, duh – like I couldn’t figure out it needed to be towed.  They also suggested what to do to get it into a parking space, but every time I tried to get it to move, either forward or back, it would stall almost immediately. 

I then decided that I was going to push it into a parking space by hand.  It wouldn’t be the first time I’d done that to a car.  I got out to push, then looked back to see that the emergency brake was still on.  Well, no wonder the car kept stalling. 

Now, the intelligent woman whose head was on straight, wasn’t worried that she was blocking traffic, wasn’t rushed by clothes that would simply sit and wait until she got back, and was feeling frustrated by this newest car expense to take a bite out of her budget would have gotten back in the car, taken the brake off and tried again to hobble the car out of traffic and into a safe spot to wait for the tow truck.  Yeah, that smart woman’s brain had disengaged in that moment and I leaned into the car and released the brake.

Do you know where this is going?

I had forgotten that there’s  a slight incline to get out of the parking lot.  You’d never notice it to walk it, but it is definitely there and the car began to roll backwards on it.  It picked up enough speed that I couldn’t jump back in to stop it.  Now, the smart woman might have let go at this point and let gravity do its dirtiest.  However, the smart woman’s brain was in panic mode at that point, thank you, and I ended up being partially dragged under the driver’s side door and snagged by my old lady jeans to its lower edge.  I knew that the car was heading for someone else’s car (I found out later it belonged to a coworker) and I desperately yanked on the steering wheel, hoping to minimize the impact.  As it turned out, I had managed to avoid the collision and my little car, with my body acting as a braking wedge, came harmlessly to a stop behind the car next to that one, about 25 feet from where the nightmare started.  Problem was, I was still wedged under the door and wasn’t sure if the car would move again once I unsnagged my jeans and moved.

I started to scream for help as soon as the car started to roll.  Did anyone come running?  Nope.  It wasn’t until about 30 seconds after the VW and I stopped that a man walked over and calmly asked what had happened.  Was he kidding?  He apparently didn’t see what had just happened and couldn’t figure it out for himself.  He was going to call 911 and get an ambulance on the way, but I knew I was all right and declined.  I asked if he would put the emergency brake back on and once he did that, I unwedged myself and got up, markedly shaken, but alive and walking slowly. 

I found my jeans had been pulled down to my thigh by the friction.  Oh, that friction.  My underwear had been ripped to shreds on the right side, the jeans were muddy and gritty, but intact (way to go, Land’s End®), and my hip-length jacket was similarly dirty, but also in one piece. 

Then, there was the wearer of said apparel.  In this rare moment, I was thankful to have my girlish hips well padded with fat.  After being evaluated by the urgent care facility in the same building where I work, I found that underneath all the mud and grit, I had a serious case of road rash  and nothing more.  Oh, I’ll probably have a colorful bruise about the size of a football develop on my right hip over the next few days and maybe one on my left knee where I was caught by the door as well.  I’ll probably be sore as hell, too.  But that’s the extent of my damage, no one else was hurt and no cars were injured in this event. 

Well, almost none.  There was still my car with the clutch pedal still flattened to the floor.  It was towed to the garage to be evaluated tomorrow.  I suspect there is more repair work required than I can afford and that the car is worth.  I can’t afford to buy another car, either.  Walking and public transportation seem to loom large in my future for the time being.

I have that clueless stranger to thank for his helping hand to brake.  I have my best friend and her husband to thank for coming to get me, take me to get my laundry and then take me home.  I have three coworkers to thank for getting my car into a parking space to await its tow.   I have the attendant at the laundromat to thank for putting my clothes in the dryer when I called to explain that I had "an incident with my car."  Finally, I have the staff at Emergency One, the urgent care place, to thank for their care and infinite patience in evaluating and treating me.  Some would say there is another more intangible being to thank in all this as well, and I would have to agree with them.  No major injuries to self and no damage done to others, other cars or property.  And just as a final note, with the car engine off, the power steering wasn’t working, yet in my panic, I managed to turn the wheel and in the right direction to prevent any further heartache.  Coincidence?

Anyway, that’s the story of my Monday, which started ordinary and ended not so ordinary.   How was your day?

Chicken-Scratch 101

The one thing that separates us from all the other species – really bad penmanship.                                                                                                                                                   Paraphrased from “NCIS”


While I was at the laundry late last week, I got this great idea for an essay for my blog.  I got it all written in the time it took for my clothes to dry, but it may be a while before anyone sees it.  Yes, there were scratch-thrus and scribbles, changes of mind and word.  But, the real issue was that I found I couldn’t read it several days later.  Inspired as I was, I wrote so fast and furiously, it became illegible in spots, especially toward the end.  I always used to say that if I could read a doctor’s scrawl, I could read anyone’s.  I’ve now been proven wrong and by my own accursed cursive words.

I can blame it on arthritis, which I have, and that after about 5-10 minutes of writing, my hand starts to ache to the point where I write faster, and messier, just to get it over with.  Perhaps I can even blame it on too much time keyboarding my words instead of taking the time to neatly write what I have to say pen to paper, the muscles used to write perhaps weakened by disuse.  Regardless of the reason, I still have two pages of relatively well thought out topic that practically need a forensic specialist to decipher.  Either that or an expert in hieroglyphics.

They say that the practice of handwriting anything is becoming an archaic activity, a lost art being replaced by e-mails and texting in computer-generated fonts.  Yet, it’s still being taught to our youngest students by parents and teachers alike.  Apparently, someone other than myself sees that there are times when this old-fashioned method of communication still has its place in our modern world and there are still going to be times when it’s necessary or simply preferred.

But, it still needs to be readable.