...And Laugh

These last few months or so I’ve been responsible for taking care of a young man who happens to have some substantial challenges in his life. Terrific guy and who among us can truly say that we are without the need for help in some form or another from the others in our daily migrations within our often, at times, chaotic existences….

At any rate, several weeks ago my friend and I were travelling in my car on a Saturday towards one of the movie theatres here in the western “hills” of North Carolina where we now both live. As we approached our destination that afternoon my cellphone rang w/a caller ID which indicated that it was a friend calling not for me but for my current travelling companion, who, at the time, was napping. As I swung into the theatre parking lot I nudged this sleeping person awake and handed him the phone w/his buddy holding on the other line. ~Now I probably should mention that at times I can be cheap and that my cellphone and network carrier reflect this abhorrent quality of mine~ ,upon gripping this sub-standard cellphone of mine and uttering hello my service dropped this seemingly important incoming call. –Turbo semi-wakeful Agitation descended so quickly at this distressful occurrence that I barely had time to slip into a parking space before trouble began brewing within the very tight confines of my car. Thinking fast on my feet I stopped, parked, got my phone back and related to my companion that perhaps we could redial the recently “dropped” call from the movie parking lot area with better results and hopefully regroup our collective composure by absconding from our vehicle for a more suitable reception area. As I made my way out of the parked car and moved around to his side to try and get better reception I noticed with some degree of  my own personal agitation that he was gripping the interior door handle and frantically attempting to open his door in order to get out quickly. As I observed this unfold in the slow motion way that seems to only happen when things are about to go completely awry I blinked once and the next image that my brain processed was one of him red faced and even more angry than before holding what just moments before had been my interior-connected door handle (plastic housing and all) in his clenched right hand! –Yay.

So…for the last several weeks and to this very day still, in order to open the passenger side door of my car it is now necessary to first open the passenger side window (electric windows!) and then stick your (his) arm out the window in order to use the outside door handle and abscond from my Honda. –Yay.

Two weeks after this initial excitement I began to notice some relatively gradual change in the speed in which my driver’s side window (did I mention –electric?) was going up and down. Soon thereafter it quit going down altogether and I have had to leave it in the up and “locked” closed position. (~This will make more –or less, sense shortly.).

Getting closer to this present time frame, just shy of two weeks ago I was involved in a one man car accident. I currently reside in a trailer park development here in the mountains (-don’t ask) and the trailers are placed  going up this rather steep hill (-read mountain). The units are also aligned horizontally to one another so as when you are ascending this slope going up you have to turn in rather quickly to the left in order to come in for a “landing” and park next to your own little singlewide castle!

Now on this particular early evening as I was taxiing in upon arrival I made a simple yet problematic mistake. I entered my runway -(read driveway) at the wrong angle and instead of hitting the tarmac (-read driveway pavement) I came in “hot” hitting the rain soaked slippery hill just next to my landing-way, on a very steep incline where gravity wasn’t favorable to stooge-like overcorrections.

My car wheels spun for purchase but a Honda ain’t a Hummer and I slipped down this fairly steep incline into my neighbor’s yard/driveway pinning my car against a tree on the driver’s side and their beat up Oldsmobile against my back bumper. As I snapped out of my current state of semi-shock induced from sheer stupidity I made a rash decision to open my driver’s side door and remove myself from this mess of a situation which I had so recently created. I opened my door just barely enough to stick my left foot out and escape when it became apparent, rather quickly, that my car was still rolling and that the tree alongside my door was pressuring said door closed quickly against my now stuck b/n the doorframe and door foot. –Problem!

I jammed my right foot back down on my brake pedal to prevent the car from lurching further backwards and at the same time I slammed my left wrist and hand against the door panel to create some space so that I could pull my pinned ankle back within the car to safety. Thankfully this maneuver was successful and I was able to rock the car back and forth enough w/gas and brake action to remove myself from the scene of the scene as it were and make some sort of apology to my hillbilly neighbors. –Yay.

-I should probably quickly add that my “roommate” had just that day moved on, rather abruptly I should add, to another living arrangement (-read, he was not in the car at the time of this incident and therefore not in harm’s way at said time) and that there were some pretty new as well as pretty unsettling financial concerns related to this piece of my day as it unfolded here.

Because of this newest, (at least to this point in my story –believe me it gets “Better”), wrinkle (pun?) and the physics that mass and velocity in regards to cars and trees and Oldsmobiles and Hondas can and do create….now my driver’s side door can no longer be opened from the outside (-read, it has to be accessed from the inside door exclusively). Also because of the mangled metal damage caused by this ridiculousness, this same said door is askew in that it hinges and “hangs” pointed up and out in relationship to my doorjam with about a 3 inch gap that now lets the air (and rain) in throught this orifice –a real custom job let me tell you.

(*Remember, if you will, that my driver’s side window no longer goes up and down).

The day after this interesting occurrence I visited a guy that I know down in the valley because I had noticed that given the way my driver’s door now hangs my interior door light that is on the door panel of the drivers side stays on all the time and I was concerned that this might be a drain on my car battery. Dave is fairly mechanical and I felt that maybe he could be some assistance in helping to determine whether or not I needed to be concerned about it.

Dave decided to disconnect the idiot button that is supposed to depress when you are normally able to fully close your car door (-mine no longer closes completely although it does close enough to stay shut while driving –Yay!). Ok so this guy disconnects this “button” –disengaging the wire that it was connected to and shuts the driver’s door to see if in fact this light will now go off.  As soon as he shuts the door my car alarm begins going off and the power doorlock engages and my car locks up! Apparently this button was also connected to the security anti-theft/doorlock operating system too (“knee-bone connected to the thigh-bone” crap). I would push the button on my Honda key to unlock the door and the door locks would unlock and then just as quickly lock back down –it was sick, but frankly funny in a disturbing kind of way! Finally we were able to get in from the passenger side door (remember –no access from the driver’s side door because of my current faux pax) and reconnect this stupid “idiot button” so that although the interior door panel light would still be continually burning –at least I could continue to gain entry via the passenger door if still only from the outside!

As I left Dave’s hose, (-he actually lives in a real house!), I lit up a cigarette. I reached over the automatic gear lever to open my car’s ashtray and as I touched it, it broke into two pieces in my hand. It Broke. REALLY –came apart in my hand from me touching it apparently~

So anyhow as I write this today my recently “old” roommate has moved back into my trailer and so that part of my discombobulated life has been readjusted so to speak. It is so funny how the things that we often take for granted can change in such seemingly dramatic ways so very quickly –both good and bad, they quite simply Can and Do and Will and you just can’t always be prepared to do much more than roll with the punches. ~Oh yea…and Laugh…never forget to Laugh…!