Cleave is right when he says that things are always just a bit nutty around me. I don’t quite understand why that is, and in fact when I hear people describe me, I often feel like I sound as though I were a compulsive liar. But I’m not. Scouts honor.
Honda hasn’t been included in some of the last few entries—so I feel I have ‘some ‘splainin to do, Lucy’. (uh, silly reference to I Love Lucy if you didn’t notice).
Awhile back, after poor Honda and I had already been in a very bad wreck, I was on my way to a dinner party. It was evening on a highway in Santa Monica, and I was being followed (by about twenty minutes) by two of my dear friends, Britt and Josh.
As I neared my exit, my engine’s waving idle grew worse. The bent hood started flapping a bit. The breaks began to feel weaker. Heat began pouring off the engine and onto my lap. Traffic was slow—one, two, three seconds, break. One, two, three seconds, break. They worked. Slightly
One, two, three seconds, break…….break….BREAK
uhh….no breaks….uh….. I’m dead.
I watched my car slowly float on the freeway and my heart lurched into my throat while my stomach landed near my ankles somewhere. I threw the car into park again because I still hadn’t figured out that whole emergency break thing. Yes, my transmission was not thankful.
Instead of throwing it into park, however, I’d thrown it into reverse.
I began to roll backwards. Prayers were flying up as if they were rockets on the fourth of July. I may even have promised to become a missionary. Again. I closed my eyes—surely I was about to become the slice of turkey in a car sandwich AGAIN. By sheer squinting and wincing and praying no no no…..I stopped. I thought I hit the car behind me, but he just looped around me and kept going.
Oh God, I thought, how am I ever going to get to the side of the road WITH NO BREAKS? Crossing five lanes of rush-hour traffic?
While changing lanes I coasted toward the car in front of me whose lights were blaring red. Then threw the car into park again.
“I hate you,” I heard my transmission hiss at me.
I made it through the next three lanes but I don't know exactly how it happened, since most of the time my eyes were closed- I was too scared to open them.
As I called for help, a large, unmarked truck drove up behind me. The sun went down. It was dark. I was on a freeway. And no one got out of the truck.
An inner groan rose up and forced itself from my lips as I waited to be killed. Nothing happened.
A man finally got out of the car, sauntered up to my window and asked “do you want help?”
Uh, no thanks. Just takin’ a breather. Just needed to sit here and beat my head against the steering wheel---don’t mind me.
He seemed confused. He shrugged, walked off and then went and sat in the truck for awhile. Odd.
I’ll skip the grisly details but Honda and I finally got off the freeway. Britt and Josh, like true heros, followed the tow truck and came and picked me up. We went to the dinner party while Britt relayed her own bad news. Josh had some too. It was looking like a no good, very bad, night. For all of us. It would soon turn out to be a worse night for someone else.
While walking up the street to the dinner party we heard the sound of a car coming from one direction. Then the noise of a motorcycle coming in the opposite direction.
Then right before our eyes:
The car drove over the motorcycle.
And the motorcyclist.
Britt and I screamed.
The man survived, fortunately.
It was definitely a no good, very bad night. But certainly more so for the motorcyclist than any one of us, that's for sure. And that, people who read this, is one of the reasons Honda is a little rough around the edges. She’s been through stuff.
