Sunday, February 3, 2013

Glutton for Punishment

Yesterday, instead of heading home straight, I wanted to go to Costco for their crispy fries. It was an unnecessary trip, I was not even hungry. The intersection was congested with traffic. My mom and I drove past the green light. The car ahead of us made a sudden stop. My mom braked quickly and before we had time to feel a sense relief, we felt an impact and realized we got rear ended. Oh no, you did ain't.

My mom got off the car to face off the lady behind us. "Why did you stop all of the sudden?" My mom is not a sassy lady. The best she came up with was:" you catch me so close!" Not exactly grammatically correct, without a bitchy attitude, I knew she got no game. For the first time in years, I felt like I wanted to walk out of this car in order to provide some emotional and language support. Being confined in the passenger seat, I could only call my father for help.

"Dad, we got into a collision! Warden and Ellesmere! Come over and help!"
"WHAT! WHERE?"
"Warden and Ellesmere!"
"WHERE?!"
"Warden and Ellesmere! Near Costco and Home Depot"
"WHERE?"
God dammit, Who R U?
Later on he recalled, his legs felt weak, face turned green and lost a couple IQ points after hearing the word "collision "

Finally, he got our whereabouts, and was on his way. Meanwhile I was very concern about how my mom could pull through this situation. She had never got into a collision before. God help us...

Who knew salvation would come in the form of fire. The driver nearest to us in the opposite lane shouted:" yo yo yo, there is a fire!" The car behind us had its front lid cracked open and began burning. The lady ran away to the side walk. My mom ran back to our car and drove it forward. Oh no, this is going to be big. I am surprise, instinctively my first thought was, I am gonna be on TV and today is a bad hair day. Seeing the intensity of my mom's expression, I finally had a more logical thought:" the car might explode and I am probably going to die."

It was a huge fire, every car in the intersection was in the zone. The siren could be heard from miles away. No car dare to move in a situation where they desperately wanted to escape. The fire trucks arrived timely, the fire was put out in a snap. We all felt a sense a relief.

Finally, the traffic started to move. We stayed in the car while confronting the curiosity of every driver passing us. They were searching for the source of this grandeur traffic jam. I felt embarrassed when they gave us this "Chinese lady, I knew it" kinda gaze. Dammit, this might take forever. I cannot live like this. At the exact moment, two paramedics opened my door and asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. "YES! Take me!" Hallelujah!


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