"Blood on the Visor"

February 20, 1997 07:15...

The weather started getting rough, the tiny car was tossed...if not for the courage of the... wait...wait...did he say courage? Actually, it was a shorts-soiling experience... here's what happened.  

I was coming down the steep hill on 40th Street on my way in to work. What looked like just rain was actually freezing rain and I must have hit a patch of ice. The car totally lost control. First it slammed into the closest guardrail, then it bounced across the road (thank goodness there were no oncoming cars) and slammed into the opposite guardrail. With that extreme lateral force, and the Sidekick's high center of gravity, the car flipped over the guardrail and tumbled down the hill probably twenty feet. It landed on its side and I needed to roll a window down and climb out.

 

I didn't expect to get out alive and neither did the sheriff or the fire department, but actually, I had only minor cuts (some requiring stitches) and a few bumps. Here're some pictures of what was left of the car...   The afternoon before, I had met Heidi for lunch and brought an iced tea back in the car with me. That near-fatal morning, I noticed a ring near the shift level the cup left behind and I used a spare wet-wipe to clean it up. Five minutes later, the car would be totaled and I could only hope the insurance adjuster might notice how clean I actually kept it -- or would he notice the glass all over the place?       Here's the car looking like it just went through one of those "brushless car washes" (most of the windshield was in my hair and the steering wheel was bent -- no kidding) and here I am with my bag of everything worth recovering from the car. The bag was not very full.

Who really killed Bambi's mother? April, 2004

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Last updated: January 14, 2007