For you newbies, from time to time -- on a completely random basis -- I offer up to my friends the pitfalls, peculiarities, and hilarities of my life, just for your amusement and amazement and so that you can assure yourself that you really do know interesting people.
Remember I do not make this stuff up!!
Housekeeping Notice
You will notice that I am sending this to you from my work e-mail address, but don't change your e-mail address book -- keep the javanet address for me. It's just that my very expensive Apple laptop turned out actually to be a Lemon and I am having to improvise until I can have yet another consumer triumph, which no doubt I will report on.
In This Edition
A single story so intense, it couldn't share space with any other (it's also kinda, well very, long!). I've even given it more than one title:
*Deborah's Greatest Hit OR
*Woman Saved by Butt
First, let me assure you all upfront that I am fine. Now, for the story.
Last Friday night, a perfect Deborah-type evening was planned with my only close girlfriend here in the area, Dee. We were going to dinner, then to a nonprofit, community arts space I discovered to see a movie about Stax Records, followed by dancing and grooving at another club to one of my favorite bands, the Seth Yacavone Blues Band. I was very excited that there were so many fun things to do, that I had found somebody else who thought so, too, AND that she could "hang."
We found a parking space in Northampton near the designated Indian restaurant. We got out of the car and started to cross the street -- in the crosswalk. It's important to know that in this part of Massachusetts, pedestrians rule. [My friend DJ, visiting from VA, was amazed that cars had to stop whenever you even put your little toe into the crosswalk. On every occasion possible, she declared herself Queen of the Crosswalk and sashayed across.] However, I've been very tentative about crosswalks lately, especially here on campus where 3 people have been killed -- yes killed -- crossing the street. Others have been injured. I never venture forth unless the drivers indicate they have seen me. The more astute among you have recognized at this point that this is foreshadowing.
So, we are in the crosswalk, I'm about 2/3 of the way across. Dee, who is taller, (like I know anybody shorter than me?!) is a few steps ahead of me, almost to the curb. Out of the corner of my eye, I see motion. I turn toward it. I see a car coming at me. I expect to hear brakes screeching. I expect the movement of the car to slow down. Neither seems to happen. I realize that I am about to be hit. I am right in the center of the approaching car's path. I cannot out run it.
Understand that I spend much of my life planning contingencies for various probable and improbable emergencies. One memory is from junior high school when a snowstorm closed the school early. The librarian decided to ride a school bus home instead of driving her car. She apparently has a heart attack on the bus, stops breathing, and dies on Doretta Longest's shoulder (a fellow student that some of you who have been in my life long enough may actually remember). Upon hearing this, I went over in my mind the mouth-to-mouth instructions (CPR wasn't taught yet) my mother had taught me (she's a swimming teacher, not another contingency planner) and was determined that I could have saved her. (Unlikely, but along with contingency planning, many of you are familiar with my Savior Complex.)
To this day, I am always reviewing what I would do in certain situations -- even in scenarios that are not life-threatening. [In reading this, my friend Nancy P. is probably remembering our time in the Colorado Rockies when we were determined to reach the top of a 14,000+ footer before the very-fast moving thunderstorm beat us there. Nonchalantly, I began reviewing with her what to do to prevent being hit by lightening -- this did not have the calming affect on her that I had anticipated.]
I have a contingency plan for many things: my car going off a bridge into water, diarrhea attacks while in public places, a busted radiator on a country road. I even have a contingency for what to do if a shoe drops into a public toilet while I am flushing it with my foot, but I did not -- amazingly -- have one for what to do if I was about to be hit by a car.
Thankfully, though, I did have instinct, something I've never given myself much credit for. I had no conscious thought after the "I'm going to be hit" thought. I just assessed and acted.
I jumped onto the hood of the car!!
Yes, just like in the movies. I don't know if I just jumped up in the air and the car came under me as I landed or if I threw myself onto the hood (more likely, but not as dramatic an image). Meanwhile, friend Dee, who has cleared the path of the car, is putting her hand out on to the hood of the car so as to stop its progress. I love this. Perhaps her adrenaline-filled effort did slow it down some. It doesn't matter -- the gesture is indelibly fixed in my mind as an incredible act of friendship.
I landed on the hood partially on the side of my leg and mostly on my butt. Curiously, I am not hurt and, to this day, I have no visible bruises. Those of you who are fans of my bulbous butt will be happy to know now that it serves functional purposes in addition to being aesthetically pleasing.
I bounce off the hood back onto my feet on the pavement. Then I lose it. Fear and Rage are close relatives. I begin to curse at the driver and pound on the car with my fist. "You stupid son of a bitch!" is the least of what I say. (I actually don't remember this part too well, but I know the "F" word was employed.) I walk around to the driver's side of the car, still cursing, and order her to pull to the side of the road and hand over her name and phone number. This yelling has several unintended consequences:
That last point is very important. Because after I am done yelling, I get really disoriented and sort of weak-kneed when I realize what has happened. Dee is focused on being supportive literally and figuratively. But Linda says, "we need to call the police" and goes off to do so. Meanwhile, the 17 year old girl who has hit me says repeatedly, "I am so sorry."
The police come and document the accident, but don't cite the driver. At this point I become Deborah the Magnanimous and say that's OK, I just want a record in case later I discover I really am hurt. I refuse an ambulance. [I've always thought when I've read in the newspaper that people refuse treatment at the scene of the accident that that was dumb.] I tell the girl that I know she really is sorry and that it was an accident.
Dee and I go to dinner, as planned. In fact, I don't change any part of the evening. (Maybe part of my rage was Indignance that somebody was going to mess up my fun?!) But at dinner, I am totally disoriented, restless, unable to concentrate on what to order (now THAT is a true indication that I was messed up -- many of you know how long it takes me to decide what to order!). And I remember a scene from my childhood.
I am with my father and one of my sisters. We are little guys, holding Daddy's hand, and trying to cross a very busy road. He says to us, "If I said 'Jump!' what would you do? Contingency planning. Dad was contingency planning. Would his children jump forward, back, or up if he said "Jump!"?
On the hood, Dad. On the hood.
For those of you feeling particularly protective, nurturing, or motherly right now, know that I really seem to be physically fine, although I am getting increasingly more psychologically freaked. And for those of you in the mental health industry who are concerned, I am doing something about that. I did eventually go to the Urgent Care service at the University on the way home from my "perfect" evening out. This even after dancing (there's the picture the insurance company was looking for!). But I have a very high pain threshold, so I thought it was possible that I had really hurt myself and didn't know it. [Remember the Deborah Chronicles #2 where I give myself whiplash and a possible concussion as I prepare for an interview and I go anyway? Consider, too, that my appendix burst when I was 6 -- I told my Mom I had a little tummy ache.] After several "does this hurt?" poking and probing exercises, I was sent home, told to ice my butt (like I'm gonna do that in a New England February?!), and take some ibuprofen and NO I can't go cross-country skiing the next day.
The girl who hit me called the next day to make sure I was OK. Good for her. Dee theorizes that maybe this accident will make her a more careful driver so she doesn't plow down a less agile pedestrian.
So, the next time someone says to you, "Why not? Tomorrow you might get hit by a car," believe it.
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