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Bunglin' Bundy

Bunglin' Bundy
Hail the King of Mediocrity!

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Just a bit of memory


Life has been coming at me at warp speed for so long, I don't even have time to commit deliberate breathing. I keep walking into rooms only to leave again with no clue why I went there in the first place. But my memory comes in fits and starts and while I was pondering some car "troubles" I was having this week I recalled the first accident I ever had. I was 19, overconfident, and reckless. A really bad combination. Still, I don't think the mishap was my fault. 


My boyfriend at the time owned a diner and sent me to one or the other circles of hell to get him 50 pounds of snapper turtles. In his car. Which, by some unfortunate oversight, didn't seem to have a valid registration or insurance. Snapper turtles are a priority in the food world, but registration and insurance, not so much. 


So 50 miles away from home, on a semi-deserted back road that I cannot figure out how I got on, some guy decided to swing his car around and drive on the wrong side. My side. Head on!! 

I wasn't so reckless that I didn't attempt to get out of his way but as I headed to the side of the road, so did the guy.  So we sideswiped each other.


The moron who caused the accident, and admitted it, was ticketed and allowed to drive away. Because I was driving a car with no registration and no insurance, I had to leave the car and go with the nice officer who said he would find me a ride home.

"But officer! I have 50 pounds of snapper turtles in the trunk. I can't just leave them!!"


 Officer was a little skeptical as he ordered me to slowly move to the rear of the vehicle and open the trunk. There they were. Snapper turtles. Snapping. Officer tried to convince me I had to leave them but I had the best melt down in the history of melt downs. Even the police can't stand female tears. So, fifty pounds of living snapper turtles went into the nice officer's trunk and off we went.


 When we hit end of the line, another nice officer was waiting to receive me for another ride to the next stop. Officer # 1 forgot to mention to Officer #2 that there would be extra passengers to pick up. A very animated discussion ensued but in the end, the nice officers transferred my turtles to the trunk.

In all, there were three police cruisers that carried us from county line to county line and called themselves the "snapper patrol". Unfortunately, the snappers didn't survive the trip. I couldn't tell if they were shaken up by the crash, but I think the lack of air in the various trunks they rode in is what ultimately did them in. Poor things. (you can't see me, but I am observing a moment of silence for the creatures I inadvertently murdered. well, actually, they were going to be the soup of the day if they had made it back to the diner, but...oh, the humanity!)



The worst part of this whole ordeal was having to tell my boyfriend there would be no snapper turtles for snapper soup night.  He immediately broke up with me, fired me and banished me from his sight.  

I was 19. I was devastated. I walked home in tears wondering how I could have screwed up so badly. In an extreme pout I took to my bed and cried at the injustice of it all. But wait...my brain was starting to engage. How could this have been my fault when I was driving on my own side of the road minding my own business? It wasn't my fault. Damn Right. So why was I blaming myself?

As for the flipping turtles, if boyfriend had bothered to renew his registration and insurance, the snapper soup would be boiling in the stock pot and all would have been right in the world.  Also, not my fault!! 

At that point my blood was boiling. A temper my parents had tried to discipline out of me for so many years broke through and pulled me off my bed and right to the phone.  I dialed boyfriend's work number and when he got on the line I let him have everything my wounded inner child had been harboring for 19 years.
 
 When I was finished, I had a promotion, a raise, a new car, a paid 10 day vacation and a plane ticket to Florida!! Jackpot!!


And the best perk of all was that the gosh darn turtles were delivered to the back door of the kitchen from that day forward.


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