Post by lizyy on Apr 5, 2014 2:49:07 GMT
Stories like this have been told before. Yet, they never seem to get through to us. We are not immortal and I could easily be dead right now. When I was younger, below ten years, there were multiple times I could have died. Drowning included. I once jumped off the far end of a dock and couldn’t swim, during another I fell off a beach toy in the deep end of a pool and managed to go unconscious underwater. But even still, less than a year ago, I would drive 120 km/h on icy highways (about 160 on non-icy ones). And to make things worse for myself I would also wait until the last possible moment to go to work, meaning I would drive as fast as I could just to not be late.
My second car was heavy and good on ice, rarely slipped, and would be referred to as a “tank” by people who saw it. For a car that steady and good for highway driving, someone would have to be really moronic to end up totaling it in one move. Somehow I managed just that.
I remember it quite clearly. It was a Sunday afternoon, I had slept in that day and had a shower, and as usual I waited till as late as I possibly could to go to work. I rushed out the door, said goodbye to my dad and his girlfriend, thinking it would be just like every other car trip I had been on.
Isn’t it silly that people say not to judge someone before you know them? What they mean is, don’t take past experiences with people that this person you just met reminds you of, give them their individual chance because they have nothing at all to do with your past or the past experiences you have. Yet when it comes to other things like work experience, driving experience, any other kind of experience that has not to do with people really, that we are in fact told to base what we do off the past? In my case that’s what I was doing. I was basing what I would do for that one drive off of what had worked for all of the others I had done: speeding. And by that I don’t mean 10 km/h over the limit on a nice summer day, I mean about 20 or 30 over the limit on a day with horribly icy roads.
I wasn’t even half way to work when it happened. When I tried to slow down at the wrong time and hit a patch of ice, when my car went flying to the ditch but for some reason I fought it and instead of having the car get a face full of snow and need to get towed out, I made it roll twice. One 360 on the road and another to land it sideways in the ditch, the bottom half near unmovable with how deep it had buried itself. I sat in the car for a couple seconds, with my CD still on the loud volume it was set at when I started driving, I had no idea what had just happened, it was all too fast and I was confused and suspended in disbelief.
Once I realized I was in a car that could potentially fall over at any time, depending on how much it had lodged itself. I knew I had to get out of the car. Somehow I managed to move around in my seatbelt so that when I unbuckled it I didn’t fall, and then awkwardly balanced between the seats and the dash board I climbed up, opened the door and held it so I could pull myself up. I grabbed the side of the car and used that to finally escape. Hopping off the automobile and onto the wintery ground, leaving behind all the recycling that had flung itself everywhere in my car and also leaving anything else I may have had in there, I walked along the side of the road to find any form of life.
It was the middle of winter at the time. I huddled my coat around myself as tight as I could while I walked the highway searching for a house where I could get access to a phone. A car pulled up to me, stopping at the odd sight of a sideways car in a ditch, they asked me if I was the one in the car and when I replied “Yes” the woman driving invited me to hitch a ride with her and use her cell phone. I called my dad and told him about the roll, he was freaking out however kept a somewhat calm tone when talking to me. I asked to be driven to work and made it there only fifteen minutes late.
Working my shift kept me distracted from the events. Dad called me later to tell me that my car was completely totaled and that I would never be able to drive it again. That unsettled me but I knew I had to complete my duties at my job, so again the persona I slip into at work took over. Dad and his girlfriend, Krista, showed up to drive me home.
They didn’t really yell at me so much as they were harsh, more on a concerned note, but also happy I was alright. I cried almost the entire ride home, even though I knew I was ok and I knew they were just concerned about me. They both said repeatedly that someone must be watching over me, because I got out of that roll without even a scratch or a bruise.
It’s possible that I would just think myself more immortal than most young people already do, but to be honest I realized how fast things can happen, and how out of control they can be. There have been many stories like this, where we all learned a lesson like this, that we could die at any moment, but people continue doing stupid things. Some things you just have to understand from experience to fully realize, such as just how easy it is to die.
My second car was heavy and good on ice, rarely slipped, and would be referred to as a “tank” by people who saw it. For a car that steady and good for highway driving, someone would have to be really moronic to end up totaling it in one move. Somehow I managed just that.
I remember it quite clearly. It was a Sunday afternoon, I had slept in that day and had a shower, and as usual I waited till as late as I possibly could to go to work. I rushed out the door, said goodbye to my dad and his girlfriend, thinking it would be just like every other car trip I had been on.
Isn’t it silly that people say not to judge someone before you know them? What they mean is, don’t take past experiences with people that this person you just met reminds you of, give them their individual chance because they have nothing at all to do with your past or the past experiences you have. Yet when it comes to other things like work experience, driving experience, any other kind of experience that has not to do with people really, that we are in fact told to base what we do off the past? In my case that’s what I was doing. I was basing what I would do for that one drive off of what had worked for all of the others I had done: speeding. And by that I don’t mean 10 km/h over the limit on a nice summer day, I mean about 20 or 30 over the limit on a day with horribly icy roads.
I wasn’t even half way to work when it happened. When I tried to slow down at the wrong time and hit a patch of ice, when my car went flying to the ditch but for some reason I fought it and instead of having the car get a face full of snow and need to get towed out, I made it roll twice. One 360 on the road and another to land it sideways in the ditch, the bottom half near unmovable with how deep it had buried itself. I sat in the car for a couple seconds, with my CD still on the loud volume it was set at when I started driving, I had no idea what had just happened, it was all too fast and I was confused and suspended in disbelief.
Once I realized I was in a car that could potentially fall over at any time, depending on how much it had lodged itself. I knew I had to get out of the car. Somehow I managed to move around in my seatbelt so that when I unbuckled it I didn’t fall, and then awkwardly balanced between the seats and the dash board I climbed up, opened the door and held it so I could pull myself up. I grabbed the side of the car and used that to finally escape. Hopping off the automobile and onto the wintery ground, leaving behind all the recycling that had flung itself everywhere in my car and also leaving anything else I may have had in there, I walked along the side of the road to find any form of life.
It was the middle of winter at the time. I huddled my coat around myself as tight as I could while I walked the highway searching for a house where I could get access to a phone. A car pulled up to me, stopping at the odd sight of a sideways car in a ditch, they asked me if I was the one in the car and when I replied “Yes” the woman driving invited me to hitch a ride with her and use her cell phone. I called my dad and told him about the roll, he was freaking out however kept a somewhat calm tone when talking to me. I asked to be driven to work and made it there only fifteen minutes late.
Working my shift kept me distracted from the events. Dad called me later to tell me that my car was completely totaled and that I would never be able to drive it again. That unsettled me but I knew I had to complete my duties at my job, so again the persona I slip into at work took over. Dad and his girlfriend, Krista, showed up to drive me home.
They didn’t really yell at me so much as they were harsh, more on a concerned note, but also happy I was alright. I cried almost the entire ride home, even though I knew I was ok and I knew they were just concerned about me. They both said repeatedly that someone must be watching over me, because I got out of that roll without even a scratch or a bruise.
It’s possible that I would just think myself more immortal than most young people already do, but to be honest I realized how fast things can happen, and how out of control they can be. There have been many stories like this, where we all learned a lesson like this, that we could die at any moment, but people continue doing stupid things. Some things you just have to understand from experience to fully realize, such as just how easy it is to die.
*in a toilet*