I can take the time to blog. I can take the brainpower to blog. Fucking ADD brain o'mine.
I passed the tests needed to graduate school. The rest is just filling hours fluff stuff and good to knows. Law class should be nice.
So, anyhow, the fam and I went to the in-laws for Thanksgiving. I wish I knew why it was always on the drive to or from there that we get into accidents, or near accidents, and I have panic attacks and freak the fuck out. I hate the Bronx and the cops that work there but I am getting ahead of myself.
I was driving this time. I chose the furthest lane over because it matched the toll payment we had (cash). We were headed to the bridge, and just about to pass the last exit before the toll. SO this girl in this car two lanes to the left of me decides to make a break for that exit and almost made it. ALMOST, except for this pesky red Jeep that was in the fucking way (jeep is the spousal's). Neither car was terribly damaged, the jeep more than the silver Taurus or whatever she had.
So, the male unit gets out, the girl gets out, I'm gripping the wheel and looking at everything and trying to keep my shit together while checking with the boy to see he was okay. My child in car = me freaking out. So, as we're sitting in the white lined area at the exit, these bigass tractor trailers are blowing by us as wtf mph and each time the passing shakes the jeep and makes me wig internally.
So how did I still end up being the most sensible one there? Anyhow. The two were trying to sort out how to exchange info and I clue into this and say, "Um, we have to call the cops."
Both of them looked at me deer in headlights and said, "Why?" and "Do we have to?"
Yes, we have to.
I tried to explain to them that its what you need to do in that sort of situation, regardless of how pleasant its working out at the time. HAVE to HAVE police report. Can NOT drive away from an accident site EVER and assume that the other person will do the same and report things the way it happened and report the damage as it happened, either.
Since my phone is packed away in the back of the car (I'm always doing that to myself) I make the spouse pull his out and give it to me. I call 911 and I get someone from India. Well, maybe not, but she can't understand what I'm saying. I tell her my name, that it is not an emergency, that it is an accident and where we are. What bridge we are near and what exit it is.
Five times.
And each time she can't seem to understand what highway, what exit, where is that, is that near this road, she'd ask and I'd be gritting my teeth (because trucks keep flying by way too close to my rear bumper and therefore my baby) and snarl again and again, " I don't know. I'm not from here. I only know I'm on 95 heading to L.I. and this is exit 9 the last exit before the toll of Throgsneck Bridge.
And she'd repeat some of the things I said again, and then ask if we were on the west side. Five fucking times. ON the sixth, I started to say I didn't understand what the fuck she didn't get... and stopped. Shoved the phone at my husband and broke down and bawled. Well, choke gasped at a hyper rate with tears streaming down my face. Bawled just doesn't carry the whole manic pace I took to express my um... utter done-ness with that 911 bitch and that highway.
It didn't help that I heard him saying the same damn shit I had been another three times before he finished talking. He hung up and said they have someone on the way. I hadn't even finished panicking before the tow trucks showed up. 2. One for each car. Which we didn't need. So then... THEN! The tow truck driver says we can't be there and told us to drive down onto the street. I was like... WHAT? Sorry, not legal to leave a place once you've called the cops there, thanks and fuckyou very much.
Luckily I wasn't speaking to him. Girl and S. were. Luckily S did understand that, and so they told use to drive forward, further from the lanes of traffic.
This is an interesting little bit I never knew. There were what seemed to be painted metal and concrete bars sticking up out of the pavement to keep people from driving onto the median there and they weren't metal. They were bendy plastic. S. was like, over those? Driver was like, yeah. And of course I asked... is he sure? S. shrugged. So I started it up and lo but I was able to drive over those poles like they were bendy plastic.
So, since the tow truck boys wouldn't be making any money that night, they buggered out. We were left to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Eventually, an hour passed. I bitched and said I was going to call 911 back. I think everyone had suspicions by then, because S. called. Probably didn't want to watch me loose my shit again. Anyhow, he re-reported, and the operator (a much smarter version than our last model) found the other call and said it had supposedly been answered.
Say what? Well, if they responded, I'd love to see some documentation of that event, because it never fucking happened in this reality. She re-submitted and said they'd be along soon. S. decided to take a quick jog over to the bridge and tunnel authority's building just about a spitshot away, to seek some advice from them.
He barely got out two words before they began an litany of 'jurisdiction, jurisdiction, not our...' while swaying with coffee cups in hand. Or something to that effect, by his retelling. He tried to explain to them that he knew, and just wanted advice, but they must have been pre-programmed to reply to any question by aggressively speaking the word jurisdiction. Right after they were programmed to eat doughnuts.
Speaking of doughnuts... the cops showed up right before S. returned. Two in a not-the-Charger squad car. One looked clean, still shaved, had a bit of youth to his look. The other looked like he fell out of a lint trap in some crusty laundromat. The other was the talker. Of course. Like a bad movie, like a novel, like a stereotype proved correct.
Yes, Virginia, burn out cops are real.
I got out of the Jeep, and the boy was all let me out too! And I was like, um, NO! S. came up the ramp and we three gathered around the two, looking half official in their kevlar vests and gunbelts. This scruffcop- first thing he says is that he advises all his victims... or whatever... that they NOT file a report.
Now, I'm all about respect and shit, but he doesn't help his case with that statement. First words out of my mouth was... "What? Well, that's what we're going to do, because according to my insurance company that's what we have to do, so we're gonna do it."
That changed his tune, sorta. He blah blah blahed about the reasons why he suggests that sort of thing and I pretty much ignored him. I am not interested in justifications. I'm interested in seeing this done, because by that time we'd been sitting around for nearly 2 hours and I had to pee.
So they looked at our cars and retreated to their nice warm car to put our important papers into their computer machine. The interview went fast, thankfully. They were confused about the damage, because the girl had a long scrape along her back bumper, and my front passenger quarter was shoved in enough that the plastic fender rubbed slightly on the tire.
She came across at such a sheer angle, I hit my brakes and tried to swerve in my lane(a two- or 3 foot jog, really) to miss her but... didn't quite miss. SO they gave me a number to call and the precinct number to contact to get my report in 3-5 business days.
THEN we were able to go. The boy was good through it all. He stayed in his seat with the belt on, despite his mass of protestations. We got to a Dunkin Doughnuts so we could use the bathroom (relief) and I did not drive or have my eyes open for the rest of the ride to the inlaws.
I slept off a lot of the effects of the adrenaline. Stupid shit doesn't want to stop being pumped out for a while, yanno? I slept and studied and wrote some of one of my papers and for once the boring factor really didn't bother me at all.
I ALSO got the results back from my capsule test. Finally. Guess what it is.
"...You have some irritation in your SI, but... harumph. Uh... I'm not completely convinced you have Crohn's disease."
Well. Fucking fine. As long as I don't have to take meds for it? I don't care. Still waiting for the results of what is left of my cervix area. I'm hoping that it's gone gone for real and there will be no further removal of more tissue because... that'd suck.
That's it in a nutshell. Now, I need to nap before making cookies for our closure class tomorrow. I'm loosening up slowly. I'll maybe even feel good, tomorrow. For now, knowing relief is here, and no more big demands are coming right away... well. For the academic life, anyhow.
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