Tiny Little Fractures

Out of sheer boredom I went to the grocery store twice today in the morning. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to hop into a car, put in some hip hop (in this case Krishan’s album Asian Avenue, which is bloody awesome) and tear about the wide streets in California. I enjoyed it despite the fact I was only driving my mum’s old RAV4 but brought back memories of my good old RSX. Well actually it was a brand spanking new metallic green 2005 RSX Type S, ahh what a sweet ride it was: 210 HP and 143 pounds of torque! I know the latter is a bit low but it was a hell of a high revving engine, redlining at 7800 RPM and the VTEC kicked in at 5000 RPM making the engine roar like a wild animal. I used to love tearing around windy roads at 80mph, dropping the clutch at green lights and trying to hit the car’s top speed, the highest I ever got was 135mph, ran out of freeway before I could max it.

Now notice everything is in the past tense due to that fateful trip I took to San Francisco on the 13^th of October. I should have known better than to drive the 500 odd miles from LA after working from 6am to 7pm, but the foolishness of youth won over. All I remember is passing a semi on a straight stretch of freeway somewhere past uhh..Damn forgot the name of that insignificant town, and then off all things to do I fell asleep. The next thing I was aware of was the car spinning out of control at 80mph, flying off the freeway. Luckily for me I didn’t have anything significant to hit on the way out apart from a small phone box, which took out my passenger side window. The glass imploded into my face, which was an entertaining experience to say the least. Strangely all I could think was ‘fuck! My insurance premium is going to go up!’

So the car gracefully flew over an embankment, over an exit street and landed plumb in a field. I had visions of cars exploding a la Bad Boys II playing in my head, so I quickly switched on my hazards (not sure why, the only thing that could have hit me would have been a farmer on his tractor which would have been especially surprising considering it was around 11 in the night) and hopped out of the car with my ipod and cell phone. Proceeded to call a friend to let him know what had happened just in case I passed out or something and then flagged a truck down to ask where the hell in small town America I was. The left side of my face was covered in blood, which thankfully was just from a scratch in my ear. The medics finally turned up in a toy-like fire truck, checked to see if my neck was broken and then proceeded to make me sign a waiver to the effect that if I happened to kick it after their examination they were not liable. Only in America would it be a priority to make a blood covered kid shaking with shock and cold sign a liability waiver. The medics and the cops who were in presence all commented on how ‘nice’ my car was; which was nice of them considering the left side was completely destroyed, one wheel was off and it was steaming like a newly laid turd.

The situation got even better for me with the only option for me being to go with the tow truck driver to a one McDonald town and get dropped off in front of that fine establishment to wait for my friend to drive the approximately 130 miles to come pick me up. I really had to pee but the waiter in McDonalds out of the kindness of his heart informed me the restaurant had closed and I couldn’t use the facilities, I guess he was used to piss-tight, blood soaked Sri Lankans turning up at his door at midnight. I returned the favour by pissing on his front door. So I sat outside McDonalds, surrounded by my worldly possessions, depressed by the destruction of my car and the fact that I had left my Oakenfold CD’s in the car’s CD player eating kottu with small pieces of glass in it, dying for a stiff arrack and coke until I was picked up by my friend.

Looking back on that experience it was pretty traumatic but its amazing how blasé I was about the whole thing at the time. It did however give me a new appreciation for life, not many people get to walk away from an experience like that with all limbs attached. Lessons learned included:

1)     never ever use cruise control especially on long drives

2)     never ever buy a brand new car, fuck the depreciation arguments, its just an accident waiting to happen

3)     no matter how invincible one feels in their youth, its actually pretty easy to kill oneself

4)     never go to McDonalds again, I will however on every anniversary of my accident take a piss on one of their front doors

5)     always take ur CD’s out of the car when u crash it