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August 09, 2002
A Friday Five grown out of control!
I've spent the majority of the past three days at home, dealing with migraines, and wishing for a new head to replace my current, obviously defective one. I'm better today, so far, and back at work. I was going to post this in the LiveJournal, but it ended up being longer than I expected, so I moved it over here instead.
A Friday Five!
1. Do you have a car? If so, what kind of car is it? Nope. I haven't had a car for about 11 years. I wouldn't mind owning one, but it's not a terribly pressing need at the moment.
2. Do you drive very often? Nope -- see above. I drive my mom's car when I'm visiting, sometimes. I really like driving -- the only reason I want a car is because I miss being able to go out on long, aimless drives.
3. What's your dream car? A Volkswagon Beetle, convertable. Preferably red.
4. Have you ever received a ticket? No, though on a few occasions I really should have. When I did have a car, I drove like a lunatic.
5. Have you ever been in an accident? Just one, and it happened on one of the rare times that I was driving very slowly and carefully. I was driving on a very narrow dirt road in Vermont -- there was no shoulder at all, just a steep drop down to the river. I pulled to the side to let an oncoming car pass (the road really wasn't wide enough to be two lanes) and the car started sliding when I tried to pull back onto the road. I think what happened was, when I pulled over, the passenger side wheels slipped off the road, and I turned the wheel a bit too sharply. Whatever the cause, the car started sliding, very slowly, spinning until the front end slipped off the road, and the car flipped end-over-end down the bank, and landed upside-down in the river. I don't really remember anything after that -- the next thing I knew, I was out of the car, standing chest-deep in very cold water (it was December) and realizing that, if someone didn't come along and help me, I would likely freeze to death. There was quite a lot of ice between me and the riverbank, and I was standing on a rock. I knew the ice was too thin for me to climb up on, and I was very afraid that I would fall through and get stuck under the ice, and drown. Happily, someone did come along -- two cars stopped, and older man and a young guy with a toddler, and they pulled me out of the river, using a very long tree branch to pull me over the ice. The older man left right after that, but the younger one took me to the nearest house, called my dad, and stayed until the ambulance and my parents arrived. I never got his name to thank him, though I'm pretty sure I said thank you more than once at the time. The police seemed to take great delight in telling me that, if I hadn't been wearing my seat belt, I probably would have hit my head, been knocked out, drowned, and not been found until the spring. The car was black, and nearly invisible under the water. The car was totalled, of course. I had a badly sprained wrist, a scratch on my cheek, a bruise from the seat belt on my chest, and I still have back troubles, presumably from wrenching it when the car flipped.
Posted by Mary Ellen at August 9, 2002 10:23 AM