chou chope

financial unrest

I'm driving home from True's school. I could do it blindfolded, s curve and all. I know every mailbox, every driveway. It's twelve miles all told, but snakes along the river. It winds and shifts, crests and dips. It's a beautiful drive really.

Bikers die here every weekend. I mean, every weekend. Seems like folks just get too confident, a little heavy on the gas, i guess. Some of those curves are just not forgiving, the rocks even less so.

So I'm heading back from the school and I am stuck behind a huge flatbed hauling hay bales. Holy Moses. Slow as fuck and late to work. Again. Great.

I pick up the speed. I figure if I hug the back of this hay hauling monstrosity for a quarter mile or so, then when we get to the straightaway, I can dart on past him. I hug, I excel, I take the left, OH SHIT, F-350!! I brake and it feels like eternity waiting for that hay truck to get by on my right. I yank the wheel right, just as the road snakes left, and that is where my day ended right in the beginning. FUCK.

I don't know how I missed the guardrail, but it was a fortunate thing. Had I been a couple of feet further down the road, i'd have been wearing it, and there's no way I would be posting this now.

The bad thing is, as soon as my tires left the pavement they hit what amounted to a mudslide topped with fresh gravel. It gave the appearance of traction, but there was absolutely no slowing the centrifugal force of my car plowing down the short embankment sideways into the river.

When the front bumper went under, I remember thinking I didn't think the river was that deep here. But when I saw the mud going straight up the passenger side window, I was almost euphoric, like what am I looking at? So surreal. I could barely move and it was all happening so excruciatingly slow anyway.

I guess I shouldn't rant about all those other fucktards out there, eh? Kharma is a bitch. Look for the new side of chou in the coming year.

Anyway. I crawled out the window and looked stunning in my fall suit caked with mud. I was sopping wet from the waist down and looked like I had feces randomly spattered across my face. I lost one of my shoes. It was awful. Not to mention all the kind people who stopped to help. Ugh. I just wanted to hide my flithy face. Why couldn't I at least be maimed into a must-have-morphine state, for crying out loud?

I trudged up the embankment. I had to get out of there. It was eight a.m. and every client I had was driving that road and rubbernecking at the fucking 4Runner in the river. Is that my broker? Every moment sucked now.

I hitched a ride, more or less, to town and went to my office. It was pathetic. I realized how unprepared I was for this. How was I going to get my car out? How was I going to get a replacement? I haven't had a car payment in four years. Ugh. I used the phone at my office to arrange rides home from school for the boys and then I walked to my house, still caked in mud. Still shoeless.

I don't remember much from last night. The boys came home but the migraine persisted, unreal. The stress, indescribable. Sleep was the same, fitful. I tossed and turned, thinking about car notes and mudslides and shame and failure and another ugly life mess to clean up. I hurt all over.

And then I woke up. I went straight to the garage and there was my car. Right where I left it. No mud. I should have been relieved, but it sure was a shitty day at the office. My neck hurt and, man, was I tired. Too busy destroying my life as I sleep.

Ah, but the bills are paid and I'm sure to get a good night's rest tonight. If I do go out driving again, I'd like to go somewhere relaxing for a change. I'm thinking Yellowstone in the late summer? But don't freaking animal jam me, people, because there is no telling what I might do. You know the R in REM stands roadrage, right? You have been warned.

Happy trails to you. And drive friendly, the Texas way.

Posted by shoe at January 11, 2007 08:07 PM | TrackBack