How I Almost Died (this time)

It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I (1) *LOVE* the United States of America and (2) find living in my current country of residence as comfortable as a cheap polyester suit, two sizes too small in 100 degree weather.  For this reason, I try to live in my own little moving USA bubble via the internet, social networking, a US standard keyboard, and all that 21st century stuff that they don’t have here, or that costs 10x as much here as it does in any other part of the world.  My Monday round up is Meet the Press, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Car Talk, The Splendid Table, KCRW Good Food, This American Life, Fresh Air, and so on.  Tuesday is 60 minutes, The Moth, and various photography podcasts and other NPR podcasts.  Obviously I don’t get through those in one day, but it’s what I listen to on my daily commute to and from work.  Two weeks ago, the This American Life episode (#380) called “No Map” (A show about people who find themselves well off the beaten path at least in any way they could have anticipated…), and opened with a story by a policeman who was telling of something that happened to him as a rookie.  He was called out to a scene in the summer time to a turned over van to find a man holding the hand of a chimpanzee on the side of the road dressed in a red sweatshirt, jeans, and shoes.  They were being yelled at by the homeowner whose lawn the van had come to rest on.  The man told his story–  The chimp had been strapped in the passenger seat of the car with the seat belt, and the lightning and thunder of the storm scared the chimpanzee.  He jumped out of his seat, grabbed the driver and threw him to the back of the van and took the wheel.   The man told the police officer, “He was doing really well, then he lost control of the van.”  The police officer asked, “The CHIMPANZEE lost control of the van??  At what point was the chimpanzee ever in charge of this thing??”  and the man responded, “Listen it’s not my fault!  The chimpanzee had the accident!!!”

WELL.  Monday morning rolled around and I was listening to Meet the Press as I left my home around 0630.  Our gate is not automatic, so you have to get out, open the gate, drive through, get out, close the gate, and get back in the car.  The end of the driveway is on an incline and curves up to the street, and I had just driven through.  I stopped on the street which is perpendicular to the access to our driveway, and got out, leaving the car running, but in neutral, and with the handbrake engaged.  Underneath and around the closure of the gate is really fine gravel and some concrete which is a little slick.  I slip there ALL the time.  And last Monday, I slipped and fell. As always, up until that point I was looking at the ground, and listening to the iPod.  I fell as I was closing the gate (which is broken by the way, so there’s no latch and it has to be blocked with a rock so it won’t open by itself.  I hadn’t gotten to the rock part yet…).  As I put my hands down to get up, I looked up and noticed that the handbrake on the car had not caught and the car was rolling down the hill toward me.  I hadn’t heard the soft sound of the car on the gravel slowly rolling backwards, gaining momentum.

As I tried to get up, I fell again because I couldn’t get any traction in the gravel.  I tried again and then started to panic as the car neared.  Finally, I gave up and just rolled to the side and out of the way as the car passed, like Jennifer Garner in Alias after putting C4 underneath some van in a parking garage.  As I jumped to my feet and watched the car roll past, the image of a little chimp with a red sweatshirt, jeans and tennis shoes popped into my head.  I beat on the hood of the car as it passed, like that would encourage it to stop on its own…  And it just rolled back, smashing into the 2 foot high retaining wall, lodging one wheel behind it, after busting through some of the 20 pound bricks, and leaving the other wheel off the ground.  The only thing keeping it from smashing through the neighbor’s fence and continuing through their yard and into the other neighbors’ yard (the jerks) was a big bush.  Usually I curse when I slip and stumble there, but this time, it saved my life.  Had I not fallen, the car would have just run me over, and I would have been none the wiser.

Rattled, dusty, sore, running late and still rewinding the “I’m either going to die or break a leg” nanosecond of true fear, I walked all the way back to the house and rang the doorbell a million times.  My sidekick came to the door in his sleeping clothes and I burst into tears and screamed, “I ALMOST DIED!!!  I FELL DOWN!!  GO PUT ON SOME PANTS YOU HAVE TO HELP ME MOVE THE CAR!” and he went upstairs and changed into sweatpants and flip flops and came downstairs.  Still crying I screamed “YOU HAVE TO PUT ON SHOES!  YOU HAVE TO HELP ME! I’M LATE!”  Now, why it is in crisis situations like this, and after traumatic experiences people insist on going ahead with their plans, instead of focusing on what has happened, I’ll never know.  But remember, I was well off the beaten path at least in any way I could have anticipated.  Still groggy from sleep, he grabbed a set of keys and followed me out of the door.  I yelled, “I have keys!!!  HELP ME!!!” and he turned around, went inside, came back out and closed the door.

When we got up the drive way, all he could see was a little car sticking out of the bushes half way, with one wheel off the ground.  He put his hand on his head, and one on his hip and turned around and looked at me with tears streaming down my face trying not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation and said, “I know I’m not supposed to laugh, but HOW IN THE *&^% did you do this???”  and I said, “I FELL DOWN!  I ALMOST DIED!  THE CAR SMASHED INTO THE BUSHES!  I AM LATE HELP ME!!!” and he got in the car and tried to move the car, but the wheels just spun.  Still apparently hysterical, I screamed at him that one of the wheels was off the ground, and that he’d have to get in the bushes and move all of the bricks from the wall out of the way so that the car could get out.  He got out.  Put both hands on his hips and scowled at me.  He walked to the other side of the car and bent down to look at the car half suspended on the wall, stood up and looked at me again and said, “I can’t believe you.” and I screamed “Now isn’t the time for questions!  I almost died!!!  I ALWAYS help you without asking questions!!!  YOU CAN’T BE MAD AT ME BECAUSE I FELL AND ALMOST DIED!!”  So he got in the bushes, heaved a lot of bricks out of the way, cursing the whole time, got back in the car, smashed on the accelerator and freed the car, driving it up to the street and pulling the handbrake so hard I thought he’d rip it out of the car.  He got out, pointed at me and said, “I want my wall back in place.”  I thanked him, reminded him again that I almost died, and drove off.  I was only about half a mile away when I realized that I had two sets of keys, mine and the spare, and turned around to go back.  I honked at the gate and he came back.  I hung my arm out of the car window and he pulled his set of keys out of his pocket and said, “When you told me to leave them, I thought ‘Yeah, and what if she drives off and leaves me locked out.’  You need to clean yourself up.  You’re all dirty and your face is streaked.”  I said, “But I remembered to come back.  And you shouldn’t be mad at me, because I almost died.  The car was up on the street, and as I was closing the gate, I fell down and kept slipping. I almost died!”  When I got to work and unpacked my bag and saw the coconut cake that I had brought for my colleagues– the only reason I was even going into the office to begin with, instead of going straight to meetings, I saw that my poor cake had almost died too.  It had cracked right down the middle from the trauma.

Post script:  It’s ok if you laugh.  When I replay the incident in my head, I laugh, too, but only after I think about how I was doing really well for a while, and then lost control of the car and almost died.  And yes, for all of you of my generation, in addition to thinking of myself as a chimpanzee who lost control of my car, I also thought of myself as the old woman on the MedAlert commercial who had FALLEN and COULDN’T GET UP!!!

Post post script:  My sidekick called me later in the day to see how I was feeling and told me that he wasn’t mad at me that morning, he was just still groggy.  He hadn’t understood when I was screaming that the car rolled backwards from the street, and that I had fallen down when closing the gate, he thought I fell getting out of the car.  He said he slips there all the time, too.  Then he asked if he could tell all his friends about how I rolled out of the way of a moving car to save my life, like in an action movie…