Day Ninety Four

Dear Readers,
      Car accidents.  We have all been in them, some of them caused by us.  Some more then others.  Everyone knows that feeling of getting in to an accident and that immediate emotion of depression and thinking, "Crap, how am I going to pay for this?".  Or thinking why does this have to happen at the worst time.  Then, all you can think about is how if I had left home five minutes earlier or later, this would have never happened.  That kind of stuff always goes through my head.  If I was ten seconds later, I could have totally avoided that.  If I had just stopped for gas first, instead of thinking I could do it later I could have avoided this accident.  This goes beyond accidents.  There are all sorts of situations that can start that kind of thinking.  Like getting an injury.  It is amazing how just a little change in your daily actions could have prevented something really bad from happening.  Makes me think of that theory of the "butterfly effect".  If you don't know what that is, the short explanation is the belief that if you were to go back and time and simply kill a butterfly, there is a possibility of creating a chain of reaction so long that could drastically change the outcome in the future.  Weird to think how something so trivial could possibly lead to major changes.  Amazing also how I can start this blog about car accidents and my mind goes totally off on a tangent.  It is hard for me to keep my mind focused, it just goes all over the place.  Which brings me back to the story I want to tell all of you.
      A few years back, a group of friends, Raina and I went on a week long vacation to Lake Powell.  We rented a house boat and relaxed and fished all week.  Great trip.  Lots of stories that could make it into the blog in the future.  The story I want to talk about begins while on our way home.  Raina, Brandon and I are driving home in Raina and Brandon's dad's car that he let us borrow for the trip.  At the time, I was driving the unreliable Ford Thunderbird, Brandon was driving an unreliable Saturn, and Raina her Integra that was too small to fit us and our stuff for the trip.  Hence, the borrowing of Raina's dad's car.  Brandon happened to be driving this leg of the trip down a two way highway.  One lane in each direction without any kind of barrier between the two.  Raina was eating an old Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich that had been packed for a while.  She took one bite, realizing it wasn't very good, she went to spit it out the window.  As she spits it out, the wind catches her sunglasses and carries them out onto the side of the road.  She then proceeds to ask Brandon to turn around to retrieve the $5 pair of sunglasses.  My first instinct would have been to just leave them and have her purchase another pair.  Brandon, being much kinder hearted then I am, obliged Raina's request.  He made a u-turn to go back to where they were.  Seeing them he begins to negotiate another u-turn to pull over and pick up the sunglasses.  Brandon had this crazy thought that since he had his turn signal on, the car driving behind him should have understood his intention and slowed down to allow him to make his u-turn.  Mind you, this is a two way highway with one lane in each direction.  He turns on the turn signal and drifts to the right to give him more room to get the u-turn in one shot.  As he starts to turn left to come across the lanes of traffic, Raina notices the car behind was not slowing down to allow Brandon to turn around.  This car, happened to be a truck towing a boat.  Raina yelled at Brandon just at the last second barely allowing Brandon to swerve back and almost out of the way.  The truck missed us, but not the trailer.  It caught the front end of the car, ripping it to pieces.  If Raina hadn't have yelled, Brandon could have very well been nailed directly and might not be here with us living anymore.  We were all okay, the car was totaled.  I am sure the guy in the truck that hit us was thinking that Brandon was going to pull over.  Brandon should have pulled over and waited until it was clear to turn around.  That was his mistake and ended up paying a higher price then just the accident for it.  The cop that showed up to make the report gave Brandon another little kick in the nuts by having to write a ticket for his illegal u-turn that he made.  So on top of demolishing his dad's car and almost dying, he had to deal with getting a ticket on top of that.  Poor poor Brandon.  We then had to stay in this po dunk little town with an amazingly nice hotel that we stayed at.  This town was so small that the local theater was only open Monday through Thursday and the movie at the time was Hancock, which had been out for four months already.  They made sure to let us know that they were excited to be getting The Dark Knight soon, which had been out for about two months at the time.  Small town.  Luckily for Brandon's dad it worked out in his favor.  He got himself out of a little debt that he had and got enough money from the insurance company to put a down payment on an even better car than he already had.  Moral of the story, if you have a car that you need to get rid of quick, let Brandon drive it.
      I know Brandon probably has a slightly different version to this story, but you can ask my wife to verify my side of this story.  Two against one.  Brandon will most likely have something to say about tonight's blog, I can feel it.

This Day In History: 1882
Jesse James, one of America's most notorious outlaws, is shot to death by Robert Ford, a member of his gang who hoped to collect the bounty on Jesse's head.

Born This Day: 1924
Marlon Brando - American actor

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
- Plato

I am waiting for my wife to get me this card.  Maybe at the end of the year.