Quote of the Day: "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." -- Mahatma Gandhi
A friend of mine once told me that I should write my autobiography or memoirs. This was after we spent the evening exchanging tidbits of our lives. I laughed and said, "Who would be interested?"
"You'd be surprised," she answered and reminded me of the popularity of such collections of life stories such as "I Remember Mama," "Life with Father" and Garrison Keillor's "Lake Woebeggon" tales.
Somehow, despite her assurances that my stories were funny and entertaining, I didn't see myself in that category. I kept remembering someone else who used to groan each time I'd say, "That reminds me of a story ..." I got the distinct impression that she was less than enthusiastic about my storytelling abilities.
Still I have thought about it from time to time, collecting my favorite tales and putting them in one place. Perhaps my family might want to read them someday ... they are for the most part family stories, after all. Even thought about a title. I'd call it "Life in the Slow Lane," or more likely, "Life in the Wrong Lane," since it seems I have a knack for not being in the right place at the right time. I definitely have a knack for being in the wrong lane, that's for sure. Whenever there is a choice of lanes/lines, whether they be traffic, check out, ticket information, etc., I invariably chose the one that will take the longest. It's a gift, I know. So it seems an appropriate title.
Anyway, I thought that perhaps here in my web log would be a good place to try some out. If I start getting e-mails that say, "enough with the stories" I'll stop. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Story Number 1 - I once got hit by a car.
When I was a senior in high school, I got hit by a car while crossing a street. But to fully understand the whole story, I must go back a ways for it is quite significant that I got hit on the day of the gym show.
I went to a Catholic high school, Immaculate Heart Academy, to be precise. Now if you also went to Catholic school, you will know that there is always some sort of fundraising activity going on. IHA was no different.
We had a gymnasium, but no gym equipment to speak of beyond a few basketball hoops, so at this particular time in my academic life, we were holding a fundraiser to raise money to purchase gym equipment. Our teachers had put their heads together and came up with this brilliant idea to hold a Gym Show. All of the gym classes would participate in different gym-type activities and our parents and relatives would come to watch their little darlings shine. Ugh - can you think of anything more boring?
My gym teacher decided that our class would do precision marching. Oh fun! She also decided that we would wear our gym suits while doing so. I had a problem with this ... actually I had several problems, but my main one had to do with my gym suit - a lovely faded blue, one piece number with bloomer pants under shorts. I was a senior, and so I'd had it for awhile. I wasn't about to get a new one 3 months before the end of school, but mine was very sad. I had worn out the seat - probably from sitting on the bench too long. Did I say, I'm not very athletic?
To get it to last until the end of term, I had put a rather large iron on patch on it. Looked mahvelous! Who cared? Not my classmates, but I wasn't about to be seen in public in that outfit. I have some pride, you know.
I also had one sneaker in my size 7 and one that was about an 11 with an old sock stuffed in the toe. Why you ask? Because I'd lost one of mine about two weeks before and there was only one sneaker in lost and found - the size 11. Can you say, "clown foot?"
I did not want to be in the gym show. No one wanted to be in the gym show. The excuses were pouring in. My gym teacher sat us all down and read us the riot act. She didn't care what excuse you had, unless there was death or serious bodily injury involved, if you didn't participate in the gym show, you would fail gym and have to go to summer school. Oh joy, just what we all wanted to spend our post-graduation days doing - attending summer school because we failed gym.
All during the bus ride home, I was trying to think what I could do about the bottomless gym suit and mismatched sneakers. Would she accept me marching with a bag over my head so no one would know who I was? These thoughts were with me as we got off the school bus at our usual stop.
The intersection was a main one in the town I grew up in. Two main streets with the junior high school on one corner.
We needed to cross to the diagonal corner to get to the candy store where we always stopped for a soda or snack before walking home. We being the six or seven of us who got the bus at the same stop. Sometimes my father would pick us up there, then we would get to ride home. This day, we were hoping for a ride because it was raining.
Because the junior high school is on the corner, this intersection was different from most. The lights went red for all four streets entering the intersection so that pedestrians could cross diagonally across the street. The cross walks were even marked that way.
The light changed and we started across. I was on the far right of the group. One of my friends suddenly shouted, "Watch out!" I stopped and turned to see what she was shouting at. Good thing too, or I would have stepped right in front of the car that jumped the light. Instead it hit me a glancing blow with the front right bumper.
Books flying everywhere, I landed flat on my butt in a puddle. Oh the indignity!
My friends rushed over. "Are you all right?" they asked anxiously. I answered with the first thought that popped into my head. "I don't have to be in the gym show!" I exclaimed. "She must have hit her head," I heard them whisper. "No," I insisted. "This is great! I don't have to be in the gym show!"
Cops gathered me up and put me in their car. I guess either they didn't know what they were doing, or they could tell I wasn't seriously hurt, because they asked where I wanted to go. "Home, I guess," I responded. What did I know. I don't get hit by cars every day. I didn't know the drill. I was in this bizarre kind of out of the body fog. Besides thinking about not being in the gym show, I recall thinking, "I just got hit by a car." And being the rational robot in an emergency, person I usually am, I also recall asking about witnesses.
The cops asked for my address, which I gave them and we headed off - without the sirens to my great disappointment. Hey, I got hit by a car. Don't I at least rate a few sirens.
Unbeknownst to me, my friends had called my mother. As we were driving up the road, I saw her in our neighbor's car heading toward the scene of the crime. "Hey that's my Mom," I told the cops. The cops did a u-ey, but so did our neighbor. Now we were each going in the opposite direction again. They don't write scenes better than this for the movies. Finally the cops and our neighbor found a place to stop and my mother joined me in the cop car. We took off for the emergency room finally. Hey - I could have been dying back there for all they knew.
After a few hours of fooling around in the emergency room - I got to ride in a wheel chair at least. I learned I had contusions, abrasions and lacerations - sounds so much better than cuts scrapes and bruises - and strained ligaments in my knee.
We never heard from the person who hit me from Friday night until Monday night. She never called to see if I was alive or dead. My father went down to get the accident report and despite the fact that all my friends and an independent witness told them the woman drove through the light, the police had the accident down as my fault. A woman jumps a four way stop to hit a student who has just gotten off a big yellow school bus, but it's the student's fault. I don't get it.
When the woman finally called Monday night, she asked for the name of my father's insurance company. Needless to say, my father was puzzled. His car was nowhere near the scene. Why would she require our insurance information? He asked. "Because I have damages to my car!" the woman answered indignantly. She hits a pedestrian in a crosswalk, but she expects to collect for damages to her car. Boggles my mind what goes through other people's minds. I didn't even break a leg - what could she have anyway, a few scuff marks? And if she stopped at the light like she was supposed to, she wouldn't have any damages at all. Duh!
The addendum to all this is that my gym teacher said, "Leave it to you to go to extremes to get out of the gym show." The police wouldn't change the report. We settled out of court for the price of the doctor's bills and a color TV set.
Other people get millions because they were stupid enough to drive with a hot cup of coffee wedged between their thighs. I get a TV set for getting hit by a car in a crosswalk while minding my own business. Like I said - life in the wrong lane. But I did get out of the gym show.
Posted by Cyberkat at February 9, 2002 12:45 PM | TrackBack