Me in December 2005

Not my year for cars

I never would have expected 2005 to be what it was. The dominant theme of the year is well summarized as "car problems." First you have to understand that I am about as unsupersticious of a person as you will ever meet. I don't believe in luck, I believe we create it ourselves by our attitude and actions. But if there is such thing as "bad luck", it has happened this year for me in relation to car problems. Yikes.

It started out on January 1, 2005 at about 12:02 am (yeah, 2 minutes into the new year) when I was delivering pizza and my car broke down. Frozen water pump. It certainly managed to destroy about a week for me as I was carless and discovered what a genuine challenge it is to fix Japanese cars. Mine was a 1986 Honda Accord. It was inexpensive, but I loved it.

There seems to be a curse in my family with water pumps on cars. Everytime my dad replaces one on someone's car, something bad happens. This was no different. March 5th, about 2 months after we fixed mine, I was driving home from work and was hit by a drunk driver going about 100 mph. I remember it all too well - the rolling, shaking, darkness, and staring at my hands tightly gripped to the steering wheel. Then it all stopped. Suspended upside down in the crumped mess of what was my car, I remained buckled in my seat. My mind was surprisingly clear. I smelled gas. I needed to get out. Immediately.

After managing to release the seat belt, I crash onto the roof of the car. Shattered glass, dirt, and blood was everywhere. My head hurt. My turning signal was on. A few CDs were scattered around. I could see the weeds pressed against my windshield. My nose was running. My CD player was ripped off. The smell of gasoline was getting stronger. I tried to get out, but the door was jammed shut. I grabbed my cell phone and called 911. While on the phone with EMS, I managed to find one of the windows was shattered and crawled out, after pushing away the twisted mass of metal that was some part of my car blocking my exit. When I finally got out, my jaw hit the floor.

"I shouldn't be alive" was all I could think. I had never seen such a twisted, nearly unrecognizable car in all my life. I tried to keep my mind thinking in case I had a concussion. I went over everything in my mind as I stood on the side of the freeway trying to flag down help. It was hopeless. Everyone was passing by. I saw the offending car in the median, with signs of people stirring. They were alive, and that was my only thought that was directed toward them.

EMS arrived in a few minutes. My head hurt terribly. It was cut and bleeding. Miraculously I had nothing else but a few scratches and some blood stains here and there. No broken bones, nothing like that. The EMS crew was amazed that I could have emerged from such a mess, considerably calm and completely acute and aware of everything that was happening. It was nothing short of a miracle. They told me they had seen people get killed in wrecks that were far less intense than this one. After checking me out, they declared I was completely fine and took me home. I never talked to the person who hit me.

My Honda

After finally finding a new car, I got my life back on track. Two weeks later, boom! It broke down. It wasn't major - just a broken throttle cable, so I couldn't control the gas pedal. But it still set me back. Once that was fixed, things would get back to normal. So I thought.

Then I was working one night. Stopped at an intersection for about 10 seconds, I looked behind me and saw a car come and crash right into me. Once again I felt the all too familiar feeling of be jolted forward, hearing the well-recognized sounds of crashing metal. I got out to make sure the person was okay. Then they drove off. It was hopeless. I couldn't catch them. They made their escape and nothing could be done to find them again.

Then school started in the fall. I found myself having to be completely dependent on my day timer to keep everything organized in under control. I was taking 18 credits, pledging in a fraternity, working part time, and trying to maintain a social life. It was quite the juggling act. Then when working one night (I'm starting to hate my curse, I mean "job") someone stole my backpack out of my car. Not only did it have all of my notes from all of my classes, it also had my day timer, two text books, my checkbook, and an MP3 player. This would have been practically of no value or benefit to whoever stole it, but it was a nightmare come true for me. Fortunately my teachers were understanding and helped me recover. My things were never found though.

I managed to survive the semester and pull a 3.87 GPA. I am extatic about that! Now that break is here, I thought my life would return to its simplistic nature and all would be fine. No. Not for me.

I woke up yesterday to find a message on my cell phone from the police. My car had been broken into. They wanted to know, first of all, if I knew where it was, and second, if I knew what had happened. I looked out my window and it was still there. But my driver's side window was shattered. I looked and my $500 stereo was stolen. All gone in just an instant. All that remained were shards of glass all over the interior and a gaping whole in my dashboard. "This really isn't my year for cars" I concluded to myself. Yeah.

Now that I got the window replaced and my insurance company is just laughing at me (liabilitiy only...), I have concluded that mean people really do suck. I don't even know if it is worth replacing just the CD player. I mean, if it was that easy to steal in the first place, whats't to stop them from doing it again? I certainly won't bother with another amplifier and sub. Those are even more difficult to protect because I can't take them inside every night. But I suppose there is a plus to all of this. I was getting sick of my music anyway and was enjoying the peace and quiet while delivering. And I am sure that the upcoming year will be much more pleasant than this one.