I am even more badass than Mila Jovovich, and am probably saving your life with this blog post. You're welcome.

So I’m driving down the street the other day, in my car that has pretty much been to hell and back, and looks like it. Seriously, it looks slightly possessed now that it has these huge smashes in the front and back left-hand sides, where I almost died in a horrible, fiery explosion of death, which I kind of think works to my benefit when someone is trying to cut me off because I totally have the upper hand in the game of who’s-car-is-worth-more highway-merging chicken. Cuz the other car usually looks at mine and is like wow, that girl is either totally nuts or probably blind because only someone that can’t see how horrific that car looks would still drive it, and either way I probably shouldn’t pull this asshole move right now and cut her off cuz if she’s crazy she might hit me and if she’s blind she might hit me. And the joke is on THAT guy, cuz I am totally NOT crazy, and blind people don’t drive cars, dumbass. But, I probably WILL hit you because given the current state of my vehicle, I’ve got nothing to lose. So, excellent choice.

The incidence of asshole moves involving cutting me off has decreased significantly since I smashed the crap out of my car. Silver lining.

So I’m driving down the highway at night and I come up next to this car and it rolls down the passenger seat window and I immediately think they are going to shoot me or something, but it’s just some teenagers and the girl in the passenger seat sticks her arm out the window and makes some weird hand signal at me, which also freaks me out that this is some kind of gang symbol warning me that I am definitely ABOUT to get shot. So I speed by hoping that they will be frightened from attempting to murder me by assuming that, since my car is already totally smashed up, I definitely must have already died in the accident that caused it and am actually a zombie now. Which means that they really could not kill me because I’m already dead, and would probably just stand up and start chewing on their arms or something. Which is freakin’ scary.

So I’m making my best “undead face” as I drive past the teenagers and then I realize that the girl was signaling to me that my headlights were out.

Yes, that’s right.

BOTH OF THEM.

I was driving on the highway, at night, with no headlights on. So I try to flip them on, and then realize that they ARE flipped on. They just aren't working.

Holy fuck.

How on earth does this happen? And then I realized that it is actually not ME that is undead, but my CAR. My car died in the accident and has now come back to life as an undead zombie car that wants to kill me by sabotaging my safety and causing other people to either crash into me at night or shoot me after giving me gang hand symbols.

It is so much worse than Christine, and even worse than that Herbie remake with Lindsay Lohan.

Cree. py.

Luckily, I don’t watch the news so they can’t scare the crap out of me by telling me that my car is trying to kill me, even though I DID read a story about Toyotas with gas pedals that mysteriously stick down at really horrible times, like on bridges, and cause the people to accelerate when they don’t want to and crash, and that it has become such a problem that they are recalling the cars. Clearly, there is a Toyota Zombie Virus that has spread throughout the country and has infected my Camry, and this sounds JUST like Resident Evil, and we’ll have to quarantine the all of the cars on some deserted island somewhere to study them and they will somehow overtake all of the scientists and turn THEM into zombies, and we’ll have to send Mila Jovovich there to kill them all, or find the antidote, or shoot zombie Doberman pinchers in the head, or whatever the hell she was supposed to be doing during the movie that no one really cared about because everyone was distracted by the fact that she was so damn sexy and a hot girl splattering zombie brains everywhere is extra super hot, especially if you are a big dork.

Anyway.

Consider this a public service announcement.

Your Toyota IS trying to kill you.

You should probably go outside and torch it RIGHT NOW. Or, bring it to me, because your evil, possessed car is probably in way better condition than mine, and I’m kind of desperate. So I will totally take it off your hands for you, even though it’s really dangerous and will probably try to kill me too, but that’s just how brave I am. I am pretty much saving your life right now. I should totally have a video game made about me, in which my boobs are way bigger than they are in real life.

I should probably stay away from rich people and town halls, and also from Play Doh.

Ok, so I'm perusing the news online the other day, because I do not watch it on TV, because all the TV news people ever try to do is scare the crap out of me by telling me that my drinking water is poisoned or that terrorists could be living next door to me and planning to blow up my cat, and then get you to watch it later with horrible teasers like

"Tonight at 11: Why EVERYTHING YOU OWN is probably some kind of death hazard and could totally kill you IN YOUR SLEEP. Unless you watch the news tonight."

And then I freak out and start imagining my coffee maker coming to life and crawling into my bed while I'm sleeping and choking me to death with its electrical cord, its evil, robotic, world-takeover laugh the last thing I hear before I die. And then I totally can't sleep for days and look at my coffeemaker suspiciously everytime I walk through the kitchen because I SWEAR IT'S WATCHING ME. And then I make the kiddo try every cup of coffee I make first, ya know, in case the coffee maker has poisoned it or something.

So yeah, I don't watch the news.

I read the news online, because that way I can totally ignore the stories I think are crazy or dumb or are just there to scare me, like that time there was apparently some kind of parasite found in my city's drinking water and I totally had no idea because I don't watch the news and drank gallons of water for like a week, but I was totally fine and DID NOT DIE.

See? If I had watched the news I would have been totally freaked out and had nightmares about parasites crawling out of my kitchen faucet and climbing up my nose while I slept and eating my brain while my coffeemaker chocked me to death. And I would have been dehydrated for like a week, cuz I do NOT have money for that bottled crap.

See? I'm so glad I don't watch the news.

Except that reading the news is probably worse, because it reminds me that the world is full of stupid, rich people.

For instance, in a neighboring town I will call West Smartford, so as to protect the identity of the accused and also so I don't get loads of hate mail from these people, there is apparently a HUGE crisis under way. Like, huge.

The town has brorrowed some sculptures to put on display near the town hall, and now the artist wants them back so she can sell them and make some money, cuz everyone knows artists are totally only in it for the dough and don't give a crap about making town hall lawns look pretty. Freakin' selfish bitches.

So there's this group that's trying to save these sculptures, called the West Smartford Art League, which I at first thought was like a bowling league and then I looked it up and apparently it is actually NOT a club of old people that get together on weekday afternoons and throw large balls at oil paintings and shit, but rather some organization with a silly website that cares a whole heck of a lot about art, and about bringing it to the town and displaying it in weird places and making everyone go stand around and look at it. I'd rather watch old people bowl though, because some of them are really good.

Ok, so now the Art "League" has put out this desperate plea to residents of this town to donate money to save the sculptures. And ok, I guess that's cool, except then I kept reading and found out that the scupltures cost $126,000.

Wtf.

$126,000? I am totally going to become an artist.

So then I decided I had to go see these sculptures in person, cuz anything worth that much money must be like super incredibly amazing, or be constructed with the eyelashes of dead angels and unicorn hair or something.

So I get to the town hall and I'm looking all over and I don't see anything that looks like a horse so I asked a random rich person who happened to be walking by where I could find the horses. And then he just stared at me with fear of god in his eyes, and grabbed the piles of cash he was pushing around in a shopping cart, cuz that's what rich people do on a Saturday afternoon, and then he ran the other way shouting something about city folks infiltrating the community and not wanting to get shot, or something.

So whatever, I wandered around for a little while longer and finally I came across these weird lumpy looking pieces of metal:



And I'm like there's no way that's them because those don't even look like horses AT ALL.

They look kind of like weird, hairless antelope with no ears, playing twister.

Like antelope that were burned alive in some horrible, African plain wildfire or volcano eruption or something. Which is not beautiful or cool-looking at all, it's actually really sad, and why would anyone make a sculpture about poor, burned-alive antelope and then put it out on the town hall lawn?

And then I realized: The Town of West Smartford hates anetlope and wants them all to die slow, painful deaths in a flood of hot lava.

Ok, fine, but even if, as a town, you've decided to publicly display your pyscho antelope death-wish in the form of art, is paying $126,000 to keep it there REALLY what people need to be donating their money to?!

Did the recession end last night while I was busy NOT watching the news?

No. It did not. Because before I wrote this post, just in case, I did some actual research and found out that we are still, in fact, in a recession.

I'm pretty sure there are tons of people, like less than a mile away in the city of which this town is a suburb, that could totally use $126,000. Like, unemployed people. Or people with no health insurance that are really really sick. OR, people with no homes. Or food. Or clothes.

I mean god, give ME $126,000 and I'll build you a big, life-sized antelope with an arrow through its head and paint it all red and bloody, to fulfill your weird, anti-wildlife fantasies, you sickos.

And then I could take the remaining $125,950 (cuz my sculpture would be made out of play doh which is FAR cheaper than 6 million year-old gold extracated from the Lost City of Atlantis, or whatever the hell artists use to justify charging $126,000 for shit) and give it to people that really need it.

Ok, first I'd probably use a tiny bit of it to fix my totally destroyed car.

But hey, I DID create the awesome play doh sculptures, so I deserve to profit from this a LITTLE, right?

Omg, see? Artists ARE all greedy bastards. I'm haven't even MADE anything yet and I'm already thinking about how much money I can get for it.

So, in conclusion, West Smartford is a town full of ridiculous rich people that don't care about poor people that live practially NEXT DOOR to them that need homes and food and medicine and stuff, and care only about mericilessly killing antelope in volcano eruptions and then paying people unecessarily large sums of money to make sculptures about it, when they should really be focusing on way more important things like making sure their Walgreens SELLS CORKSCREWS.

And helping the homeless and good shit like that.

Technology is awesome, and everything should come in a box.

So, on Wednesday night, I headed over to a friend’s house (we’ll call her “D” in order to avoid the embarrassment that will follow shortly) for some day-after-birthday celebrationing, because my actual birthday was on a Tuesday and everyone knows you can’t really get away with getting ridiculously drunk on a Tuesday anymore when you’re 25, but Wednesday through Sunday is still totally fair game.

The plan was to order takeout and sit around D’s place in sweatpants, eating greasy food and drinking wine, and generally talking shit about anyone younger than 24 that drives a nicer car than mine.

Pretty much a perfect night.

So I show up and D had already picked up two lovely bottles of some fancy kind of wine, at which point I put her in a choke hold and asked her what planet she was actually from and why she had inhabited my friend D’s body, because everyone knows D and I only ever really drink the wine that comes out of a box.

And I was just about to get on my cell phone and dial the Men in Black’s direct emergency number, which I happen to have on speed dial from the last time my ex boyfriend was nice to me and I almost freakin fainted but then got really suspicious because, really?!

And then it turned out it was just a really nice alien wearing his body like a suit, which totally explained it and also explained the really freaky sex.

Anyways.

Before she collapsed from asphyxia, D signaled to me in some kind of sign language something about stopping at a liquor store that didn’t have any boxed wine and then not wanting to walk out without buying anything and look like a weirdo, and then buying two actual bottles of wine and then something about her eyes filling with blood and the room spinning and everything going black.

I assumed that last part was just babble from the lack of oxygen, so I let go of her neck cuz I didn’t have time to sit around trying to decipher all of the crazy talk, as there was drinking to be done and pizza to be ordering.


So let’s pop these babies open, I said, at which point D produced a corkscrew from the Jurassic Period that someone must have pried from the fossilized hand of a caveman and even HE probably couldn't get it to open a damn bottle of wine, cuz holy god did we try hard to pull the corks out and they would not budge.

At all.

And I'm all “Dude where did you GET this corkscrew?”

And she’s like “Um, from my Dad,”

and I’m like, “Is your Dad 15 million years old?”

And she’s like “Just about.”


For illustrative purposes, the corkscrew looked exactly like this:



Ok, really it looked like this:




But it was just about as effective as the stick with the rock at the end tied together with wooly mammoth hair.

So then we unsuccessfully attempted to poor the wine out of the little hole we made in the cork which surprisingly does not work at all because apparently the reason corks are used to seal wine bottles is that corks HATE ME and do not want to me to get drunk or enjoy myself or ever celebrate my birthday ever.

Or it has something to do with air pressure or something. Whatever.

And then we tried hammering a pair of scissors through the top of the cork which I swear I did once before and it worked like a charm but, like I said, these particular corks hate me and want me to die.

And then we briefly considered shattering the entire bottle in the bathtub and drinking the wine out of the tub with straws while sitting around the edge which actually sounded really fun until D told me she once attempted this in college and the glass shards in the wine made it hurt going down.

Which totally killed that idea, and clearly shards of glass ALSO hate me and my birthday too.

God.

So at some point we decided that spending and hour struggling to open the wine with the ancient artifact D had on hand was not getting us drunk at all, and so ventured out to find a corkscrew at Walgreens,

which had just about every other home kitchen appliance one would want, including some one would definitely NOT want, like a “rice cooker.”

Which I always thought was just called a “pot,” but apparently there is a special contraption that is used exclusively for cooking rice if you are one of those people that is too good to cook your rice in a pot and also shops for your kitchen appliances at Walgreens.

So anyways, yes, Walgreens had all kinds of other worthless crap, but no corkscrew.

In fact, it had a little hook and a sign for where the corkscrews SHOULD have been, and were sold out, which says a lot about the patrons of Walgreens, and also is totally appropriate given that it is one of only two convenience stores located within a mile of two colleges.

So ARGH, we left Walgreens really frustrated and drove all the way to a grocery store were we finally found this beautiful creature:



And I also found a pound of candy corn on sale for 75 cents which is a ridiculously good deal for candy corn so I of course had to buy it and eat it all within the course of two days, and D bought Sour Patch Kids.

We grabbed pizza, spent about 20 minutes in the pizza place trying to figure out the name of the girl working behind the counter that we definitely know from middle school but holy god I still can’t remember who she is and it’s driving me crazy, even though we definitely agreed that she was less than nice to us in 7th grade.

And then we got back, and proceeded to open the bottles of wine in less than 2.5 seconds, and consume them almost as quickly.

Ah, the wonders of modern technology.


(UPDATE: This experience has solidified in me the need to arrange a technology intervention for D because not only was she unaware that great advances had been made in cork removal, but she is also somehow totally unable to figure out how to post a comment on this blog, even though hello? blogs have been around for like 65 years or something really close to that. So everyone should definitely comment the SHIT out of this posting to make D feel really bad. Even though she bought me a really nice birthday present.)

1984 was probably the best year ever, and not just because I was born in it.

(A reflection on the last 25 years of being a halfsie, and why I'm pretty sure Barack Obama and I are the best halfsies that ever lived, ever. And the oldest daughter on the Cosby Show.)

Ah, 1984.

A year that, depending on one’s age at the time, may have been one of great accomplishment, pivotal world events, technological advances or questionable hairstyles.

In fact, no matter how old you were in 1984, chances are you had a really bad hairstyle.

1984, in my opinion, was the absolute pinnacle of great American cinema. Consider, for instance, these classics released in that year:

Ghostbusters

Gremlins

Karate Kid

Footloose

Sixteen Candles

Revenge of the Nerds

The Muppets Take Manhattan


I mean, hello? Brilliance.

But in all seriousness, if nothing else of significance occurred in all of 1984, the release of The Never Ending Story was more than enough to make it a year worth living.

The movie is just fantastic. Honestly. See it.

In 1984, the first Apple Macintosh is sold.
Michael Jackson is burned by pyrotechnics while filming a Pepsi commercial.
The shuttle Challenger is the 10th space mission launched, Jesse Jackson runs for president, the Summer Olympics are held in Los Angeles (which the Soviet Union boycotts), and the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago White Sox play the longest Major League Baseball Game in recorded history.

Eight hours, six minutes. 25 innings. In case you were wondering.

The Democratic Party named the first woman vice presidential candidate to a major party ticket, the Progressive Conservative Party (as if Canada could BE any more oxymoronic), wins 211 seats in the Canadian House of Commons and, 250 years after their deaths, William Penn and his wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn, become are made Honorary Citizens of the United States. I’m sure they are eternally grateful.

And, on September 8th, at 3:42 in the afternoon, I was born.

Surprisingly, this was not mentioned in the chronological list of events on the Wikipedia webpage for the year 1984.

A gross oversight, to be sure. I added it in. (You're welcome, Wikipedia)

At some point on September 7th, my mother ate a pizza with every conceivable topping known to man on top of it, at which point I decided I would no longer remain a tortured slave to her bizarre cravings, and wanted out, three weeks early.

Had I known the horrific fashion era I was about to enter, I may have reconsidered.

Fashionably, it was a difficult time; all over the country, teenage girls wore multiple black rubber bracelets on each arm and sprayed excessive amounts of AquaNet at themselves, in order to maintain those almost impossibly tall bangs and voluminous perms.

Men wore Hawaiian shirts, oversized pastel blazers, and tapered stonewashed jeans. And then, of course, there were the shoulder pads. We won't even go there.

I can’t remember for certain, but I suspect that the main reason I cried in those first few moments after entering the world was in response to the horrific wardrobes I saw all around me.
“This is the wrong decade!” my screams would have translated. “Put me back in until at least 1996.”

Alas, the birthing process is apparently irreversible. So I, along with millions of other little girls at the time, endured years of puffy-shouldered dresses and stirrup stretch pants.

My unfortunate (and involuntary) style, however, was not the reason I garnered so much attention in those early years. Though I’d like to say it was due to my incomparable cuteness, chubby cheeks and super-curly hair, it was more a function of the state of the country at the time. Interracial marriages had been legal less than 20 years, and were still a fairly rare occurrence. Even more so, multiracial children.

Racial tensions grew high in the 80s, the result of high crime rates, social and financial disparities, and the desperation of the War on Drugs. My parents married in 1981, much to the displeasure of each of their parents, not due to any particular dislike for the potential spouse, but out of concern for their respective children. I came along three years later.

While I now comprehend the uniqueness of the conditions of my early childhood, I believe I remained fairly oblivious at the time.

My Caucasian, Jewish mother recounts instances of walking through the grocery store, complete strangers stopping to tell her how cute I was and then promptly asking from what nation I was adopted.

I am told our family often received attention in the form of lengthy, uncomfortable stares in restaurants and malls.

I do recall the lonely feeling of my yellow number 2 pencil filling in the box next to “Other” on a standardized test, long before choosing multiple races was allowed.

I persevered through years of mixed-race nicknames, the feeling of never looking quite like my friends and knowing when someone I had just met was studying my face for some sort of explanation. I have become a seasoned pro at brushing off the always inappropriate question, “What ARE you?”

The prevalence of multiracial children in the country has grown considerably since then, and interracial relationships are now far more socially accepted. In the 80s, no cartoon or children’s show characters were multiracial, and I didn’t own a single Barbie doll that looked quite like me.

And, while I always suspected the eldest Cosby daughter was a product of Mrs. Cosby’s affair with a white man ( I mean, she was 10 shades lighter than the rest of the family. Seriously, Cosby Show?) it was not until much later that I was vindicated in my discovery that the actress portraying her was, indeed, biracial.

And, in 1984, there was certainly no Barack Obama.

A biracial man has been elected President of the United States. Not a black man, no matter how often news commentators choose to indulge in shameless, ratings-greedy sensationalism.

Not even they can take this accomplishment away from me.

Barack Obama is what I am. He is that new color, now a blending together of not only black and white, but also of red, and blue. He is the embodiment of “You can be anything you want to be,” a phrase every child hears, but many find hard to believe when, who they want to be looks nothing like who they are.

His achievement is the achievement of every man that came before him, of every color; he is the end of their long journeys, many of whom did not live to finish.

Barack Obama is truly what America has always wanted to be when it grows up.

There was no Barack Obama in 1984, but I am somewhat thankful to have lived through a time in which my background was a rarity; it has left me with a deep, inherent gratitude for the conditions of today; that so many children I see are “racially ambiguous"; that their backgrounds are more often embraced now, than questioned.

And though I may harbor a secret fondness for the fashions of the decade, and a not-so-secret fondness for the movies, I am glad that, as a society, 1984 is a time we have long left behind us.

Not that 25 years is a long time.

Not that I’m, you know, old or anything.

Because, I’m not.

An FML moment, brought you by: My Birthday.

(a phone conversation)

Jim the Real Estate Agent: Hey Rachel, ya know that really big, amazing, first-floor apartment in a beautiful house on a gorgeous street, with a big beautiful backyard and a fireplace and built-in cabinets? The one that's totally in your price range with HEAT INCLUDED and is located 2 blocks from your son's school in a school district that barely has any apartments available, EVER, that you worked so hard to apply for and have been waiting to hear back from every second of every day since you submitted your application?

Me: Yes? YES?!

Jim: Well, I wanted to get back to you right away this morning because...

Me: YES???

Jim: ...well...they've decided to rent it out to their nephew.

Me: *

Jim: You know, if it was me though, I would totally have rented it to you, because I've gone through everything you submitted and you're pretty much the perfect tenant.

Me: *

Jim: But hey, when I was going through your application I just realized that today is your birthday! What a coh-ink-ee-dink! Well, Happy Birthday!

Me: (hangs up phone).

If I'm ever held hostage for $7 billion ransom, send Vin Diesel.

So, driving next to a cop the other day, and silently praying that he doesn't take one look at my severely destroyed car, one functioning headlight or expired registration sticker (sidebar: Dear DMV, You are slow as shit! Where is my sticker?!) and decide to pull me over and arrest me for Driving While In a Total State of Disarray, I noticed that THIS is, apparently, my city's police force motto:



Ok, "Excellence" is excellent. "Integrity" is a good thing, too.

I mean, I guess. Pretty sure I have some. Somewhere.

But "Professionalism"?

Hmmm.

If there is only one quality I could ask for in a police force, whose sole duty it is to protect cute, law-abiding citizens such as myself (are you laughing?) from the dangerous hoodlums and deadly gang activity of Middletown, CT, "professionalism" isn't really the first thing that springs to mind.

I'm not really sure I care if my local cops wear khakis and loafers on casual Friday, or know how to format a business letter, or conduct an efficient meeting, or engage in appropriate watercooler conversation.

If I was kidnapped by masked gunmen and held hostage for $7 billion dollars ransom (What? That's what I'm worth. I have definitely been told that, by someone who knows about these things. Like an insurance adjuster or something.) I think I'd rather have THIS guy come rescue me...




...than this guy...




And then, after the near-death, adrenaline-pumping, narrowly-escaping rescue, a glistening, sweaty Vin Diesel would rip my clothes off and have his way with me in the back of the cop car, because OmfgHowHotIsHe?!

*

What was I talking about?

Oh.

Professionalism isn't scary. I'm pretty sure our drug-dealers and resident vagrants see a cop car coming and say,

"Oh no! Quick, hide your drugs! Here come the Middletown cops. They might beat you up with their leather-bound Day Planners!"

And then laugh amongst themselves. And then sell crack to a passing little kid. And then shoot a kitten.

This does not make me feel safe.

So, I'd like to propose the following, as a replacement third quality:

Excellence. Integrity...


"Fucking Badass."

"Water-boarding and Torturous."

"Above the Law."

"Armed and Unstable."

"Superhuman Mutants."

"In Need of Live Target Practice."

"If you even THINK about committing a crime, we WILL kill you."



I'm ok with any of the above, really. Maybe add a skull and crossbones or something.

Or, better yet, attach an actual human skull to the front of the car, like a hood decoration. Yeahhh.

Maybe leave the bumper permanently splattered with blood...

God, I'm really good at this. The police department should totally hire me to makeover their image.

Commissioner. Call me.

Um, yikes. (or, "How much would it cost to send a bouquet of fruit to god?")

It's interesting, the things that go through your mind when faced with impending death.

No, really.

As my car skidded across a busy highway on a hot, rainy day last week, I remember having a very calm, clear mind, but thinking very strange things.

I wonder if there is some way I can mentally transport my son out of the backseat of this car right now.

I wonder, if I try really, really hard, if I could actually go back in time and avoid this dangerous curve altogether.

I thought these things with 100% seriousness, as though they were actually, physically possible.

And then I thought about things that were possible.

I really hope that truck we are narrowly skidding past doesn’t hit us.

What is the likelihood that, when we hit that barrier, the car will flip over it? Are we going fast enough for that to happen? What is on the other side of the barrier anyway? (a 50 foot drop).

What if we erupt in a ball of fire?

What exactly will I do when the car stops moving?

It felt like 10 minutes of sitting, pondering. But really, I contemplated all of this in the course of about 5 seconds, as my car careened sideways directly at a concrete wall and past the 10 or so other vehicles traveling towards me at 55 mph.

They did not hit us.

But we hit the wall. Hard.

I don’t remember screaming, but I know that I did, because my kiddo yelled at me when the car had stopped.

“Why did you scream?”,as if angry at me for scaring him, though I suspect it was more of a random reaction to the shock of the impact.

Clearly, I screamed because I was scared out of my ever-loving mind.

Are you ok? I asked him over and over. Oh my god, I said over and over too, in between.

And then I assessed our situation.

We had stopped, facing the wrong way. But, we were on the shoulder. We had not bounced back into the flow of traffic. We were, at least safe. The car was not on fire. We had not flipped over. No glass had shattered. No one was hurt.

I breathed. My arms shook as I reached for my cell phone which, of course, was buried at the bottom of my way-too-big-but-fashionable bag. I searched frantically, pushing past miscellaneous receipts, and a bottle of vitamins, a container of brown eyeshadow, and a half-full bottle of Aquafina. Shit, shit I said. I don’t know why.

An old man had pulled over and walked towards my car, asking if we were okay. I dialed 911, listened to it ring WAY too long, and then the call was disconnected.

Really?! I dialed again, and again was disconnected.

The old man yelled through my window. “You’re on 91 SOUTH! EXIT 27!”

Thank you, I said, trying to appear grateful for his unsolicited help. I was grateful, incredibly so... but shaken, and pissed that the one number you are supposed to call when the worst possible things in the world are happening to you, was not connecting.

What the hell is the POINT of 911 then?!

Finally, after 3 attempts, someone answered.

“911 Emergency,” he said. He sounded far too calm. Why wasn’t he freaking out? I think people that answer 911 should sound freaked out. They should say things like:

"Oh my god, you're calling 911! Are you ok? Oh my god!!! Someone help this woman!"

It would make me feel better for being freaked out, too.

I told him what happened. I told him where we were. The old man kept yelling through my window. My son whimpered in the backseat.

I told the way-too-calm 911 operator that I couldn’t move from where we were, because I was on the ass end of a blind turn on a highway. If I pulled out into traffic to do a U-turn, anyone could come speeding around and smack into me. I needed a cop.

The operator assured me they would send a state trooper out to me right away.

I hung up and asked my kiddo if he was ok another 23 times. He was.

And then we waited.

I felt ok. A cop was on his way to help. We were out of danger. It was going to be ok.

Wait. That car is skidding around the corner the exact same way we did. Right towards us. Why isn’t he stopping? Oh my god. Please stop please stop please stop.

Really? Could this really be happening? One crash isn’t enough?

I braced for another impact, and my mind was again flooded with calm thoughts: what I would do if the cars suddenly lit on fire, exactly how I would get out and how I would pull my son out. What door I would open, what window I would break.

Apparently, my brain transforms into McGyver’s in the event of an emergency.

I then mentally planned out how to build a fully-functioning parachute with nothing but a toothpick, a rubber band, and a bubble gum wrapper.

Just kidding.

Anyway. Back to the peril.

The car slammed into the barrier, and I held my breath.

Fuck.

But it stopped. It stopped about 3 yards before it would have smashed into us, head-on.

They were ok. We were both ok. Holy god was that close. Too close.

Where the HELL are the cops?

We sat and waited, and they didn’t come for at least 6 HOURS.

Ok, it was probably about 25 minutes. But it felt like 6 hours. And, in that span, 2 other cars skidded out and crashed in the exact same way we had.

I;m not kidding. 2 more! Right into the barrier.

Doubleyou. Tee. Eff.

When you’re on a wet highway, facing the wrong direction, cars flying around a blind corner, spinning out all over the place, 25 minutes is too long.

I started to panic.

We have to move, we have to get off this highway, we have to move, I began to repeat over and over in my head, each time an oil tanker came around the curve and I imagined it fishtailing directly at us.

I considered attempting a death-defying U-turn. I considered waiting there to be flattened by an 18 wheeler. Neither of those options seemed very appealing.

And then, finally, FINALLY, after 3 DAYS of waiting, a cop appeared. He put on his lights. He put out flares. People started to slow down.

I began to think that we would not burn in a ball of oil-truck-fire after all.

We were lucky. We escaped the entire fiasco with nothing more than a really smashed up car, that was already a sad piece of crap anyway, and shaken nerves.

No injuries. A lot of people end up a whole lot worse.

So, if there's something up there (somewhere) manipulating how things end up going down in this world, I owe ya a big, big thanks.

THANKS.

I’d send you an Edible Arrangements bouquet, and even splurge for the one with the awesome chocolate-covered pineapple, but I wouldn’t know where to address it.

Pretty sure they don’t deliver to “The Heavens.” That’d be a hell of a service charge.