The Big Hit

I am, as Tiffany pointed out, going through a major life transition. I'd like a week, please, to get my head together. Thank you.

Anyhow, so this wacko mood that I've been in is the reason that I was out and about driving this afternoon.

I went to a used bookstore and browsed for a while. I didn't buy anything. (Hey, I said I was in a weird mood.)

I took Mulholland Drive for a bit and fantasized about having a big ol' house overlooking the Basin, and I stomped down on the inner voice that said, "What do you do when you need to dash out to the store for a quart of milk? Talk about a pain."

I listened to NPR's story on the 50th anniversary of the Berlin airlift, an exciting undertaking that my father told me about years ago: "They would land planes every minute, just to prove to the Russians that they could do it." I drove a bit aimlessly.

I was stopped at the light at Ventura Boulevard and Dixie Canyon and thinking something along the lines of "I should take a left here at Dixie Canyon and drive backstreets home; Ventura is just too crowded" when--

BAM!

--I was thrown against the steering wheel.

It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened. I had just been rearended.

After the shock wore off I started screaming. "Goddammit!" I yelled. "Goddammit, why did you hit my car?"

The driver of the other car got out and came to see if I was okay. Since the rear seat windows are shaded, she asked, "Do you have a child back there?"

I shook my head. I called Darin and I was fine, really, until he answered the phone, at which point I felt myself becoming hysterical. "I'm okay," I began, "but I just got rearended."

"Do you want me to come get you?" he said.

The other driver saw me burst into tears and start crying. She asked me if I was hurt.

Rather incoherently, I told her no and I told Darin no, I didn't need him to come get me. Then I asked him to call the insurance company--which we hadn't done for my new car yet. I told him the other driver was still here and we would go exchange information. He told me to calm down, everything was okay, we'd take care of everything.

I got out of the car and walked to where she had hit me.

She said, "I started braking half a block ago. But my brakes didn't work."

I looked at my bumper. Scratched. There are little plates on the bumper that had come off. The rear lights looked unfazed. I didn't notice it until I got home, but the license plate holder had come off.

Then I looked at her car. And at that moment, I became a Mercedes worshipper for life. I will never drive anything else.

The front of the Nissan Altima was trashed. The hood had crumpled, the bumper was off, both headlights were smashed, the motor had been crunched. Glass and bits of metal were everywhere. All the damage on the street had come from her car, with the exception of my license plate holder. Her air bag had deployed. That car wasn't going anywhere without benefit of a tow truck ever again.

I looked at my bumper a second time. It didn't look too bad. In fact, if it weren't for the facts that a)it's a brand-new car and b)I had a responsible citizen at fault, I could pass on doing anything.

I've been rearended twice in LA, both times by people with insurance. I wonder what the odds are of that happening.

We exchanged information--as we did so, one passerby looked at the accident and then looked at us. "Good thing you had a Mercedes, huh?" he said.

Another Mercedes M-320, same color as mine, drove by. I watched it slow down and take in what had happened.

If I'd been in my Acura Integra, I might not have had my foot on the brake pedal at all, because it had a manual transmission and the car could idle without the brakes. In which case I would have plunged into the car in front of me. I didn't realize it at the time, but my car barely budged when it was hit.

Darin and I went to see Deep Impact--we had planned on seeing some movie, and after the accident seeing one seemed like a really good idea.

We both thought Deep Impact was pretty good, not great. There's no character development, because they don't have time. Interesting twist being that everything doesn't turn out all right in the end for everyone. Neat stuff. Neat special effects, with the best special effect being the Coolest Man In The Universe playing the President of the United States. (I tell you, Hollywood could have a major hit on its hands if they'd make Morgan Freeman Reads The Phone Book.)

I mean, I'm not going to be able to tell you what happened in this movie two weeks from now, and Tea Leoni does nothing for me. But it was an enjoyable way to spend 4 bucks.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics