How Did This Happen? Why Was I Gone So Long? Man, You Wouldn't Believe It

Okay. Now, I get to tell you what happened. At long last. It was enough of a pain in the neck without all this happening.

August 14: A nice day. Going to be pretty warm, so I decided to set out late in the morning. I was going to a tech service on the west side of town. They, at a considerable price, could download the files from my very obsolete (as I have learned) laptop so I could reload it onto a new one, which I had not yet purchased but I figured I could do that later that day.

But I ran into trouble. Actually, it ran into me.

I got onto I-794 at the eastern bottom of it, at Lincoln Memorial Drive. It splits into trailways going to Madison, Chicago and Green Bay. I had to switch lanes to the left to get to where I thought I was going with Red Rover, as I had nicknamed my Toyota Camry Hybrid. I had paid for it, gotten a real deal in fact, with cash on the barrel so as to avoid the killer monthly payments after a loan. It ran very nicely. I was proud of it. It was a smooth machine. I took good care of it, too.

But one I had to stop quickly, as it turned out. Whatever had gone wrong ahead of me, both lanes of traffic heading toward Madison had come to a stone stop. Not even a rolling, slow halt, either.

I had accelerated to about 60, so I had to stop quickly. Usually, when faced with a situation like that and with sufficient time, I usually choose to pump the brakes to signal to whoever is behind me to do the same, in case they hadn't been watching.

In this case, though, there was almost no time to do that. Things came up on me quickly. I had to hit the brakes hard. But I did manage to stop in time.

Not the guy behind me. As it looked afterwards, he must have been either arguing with his wife or pontificating to her. In any event, he barely stopped at all.

I saw it at the last second in my rearview mirror. There is no feeling like that, when you absolutely know you're in an impossible position. There was even room for an emergency lane on the right, but I was helpless.

Spotting him, though, allowed me to brace myself, which in retrospect turned out to be a good move. His van blasted me--Boom!--with every bit the sickening crash that you could imagine. 

He had to be going 40, and I think that was giving him the benefit of the doubt. He hit me right in the back, too; couldn't have aimed better had he been trying. I also steered to the right, but couldn't avoid hitting the poor soul in front of me.

It all took a long, maybe, two seconds. I knew the car was in trouble. I sat there for about 30 seconds, wondering whether I could escape. Turns out I could. Before that, I had the presence of mind to stop the car, put it into Park, and get the hell out of it. For all I knew, the car might explode. The trunk had been pushed very, very far into the rest of the car, but the back seat remained intact, amazingly. Debris from three cars was strewn everywhere.

I took stock. I had no license with me. I had lost it, somehow, weeks ago. I figured I had dropped it on the back alley getting a prescription from Walgreen's on Oakland Avenue, and had used the previous preliminary paper with a copy of the license on it to access my bank account. Nobody had asked otherwise. With Covid making mischief, it seemed too big of a hassle to arrange to get a new one.

But I didn't even have that. I had left that in the pocket of another pair of shorts, and had forgotten to put it back into the car. I had taken a picture of my license, but I didn't have my android to produce it. My shoulders sank. Would I be ticketed?

The answer was no. But first, someone had to get the authorities there. The people who hit me didn't leave their vehicle, nor did the person I hit . I was the only one visible for some minutes, with my car in the right-hand lane, immovable at that moment. So I waved traffic to the other lane for a while, but they were backed up, too. I utilized that opportunity to get someone to open his window, use the cell phone he had, and call 9-1-1.

They were there within five minutes. So were the paramedics. They immediately checked on me, and amazingly, I felt all right. I think bracing myself for the crash mattered a lot. I had an airbag, but it wasn't on. The seat belt surprisingly kept me from smashing myself into the steering wheel; I didn't even have burns from the belt itself. (The next day, I would start having a bit of whiplash.)

The paramedics and police officer checked the other people. I never knew what happened to the person whose car I hit. I can only hope they're all right, but although the impact was certainly noticeable, it wasn't nearly what smacked me.

Within a few minutes, the police officer sidled by. Sheepishly, I had to admit I didn't have my license with me. But, with a bit of walking around while waiting, I managed to remember my license number (Do any of you know it?). I had had it since I was 16, and it was waiting for me when I re-entered the state in 2016. I dictated it to the officer, who wrote it down and said, "That's impressive." (It's easy to remember. There are a bunch of 5s in it.) Otherwise, I didn't get arrested for that. No tickets were issued to me.

And he told me that all the stories matched: Nobody unnecessarily victimized themselves. I certainly wasn't happy with the situation, but at least the guy who hit me stepped up and took responsibility. Now, of course, it would take the insurance companies time to sort all this out. No way to dodge that. I would need to wait.

But now, not only did I have no hard drive and no files, I had no car and no opportunity to order a laptop that day. The police officer, very matter-of-fact and efficient, took me home. But there I was stuck.

To get any kind of vehicle, I had to either borrow a friend's or get a rental. The closest rental to my residence is downtown, about two miles away. It cost me about $12, with tip, to get one way. Hopefully, someone else will be paying that.

My shoulders sank again when I realized that I had put the pair of shorts into which the prelim license was folded into the washer. I looked into the dryer, and there it was--with all information intact and the paper wrinkled, but otherwise legible. I breathed a sigh of relief.

But when I took it down to the car rental to verify my identity, they couldn't take it because it had expired. They couldn't accept the picture I had taken of the original license (the reason for which I had long since forgotten), either. So I was stuck. Again.

The problem was that I had a trunk, and a seat divider, and a glove compartment, and a backseat filled with stuff. The wrecked car--a total loss--had been towed to a place on the southwest side, and of course, it was my job to get it cleaned out. A friend volunteered to take me. I am so grateful.

But that took some doing, too. The trunk had been shoved way, way deep underneath the backseat in a way that jammed a folding chair that was in it up against the roof of the trunk. It couldn't move, and after my golf clubs had been lifted out, nothing else could be. So the workers at the junkyard took a metal cutter and managed to loosen up the chair to be dragged out, piece by piece, and we got the rest taken care of. 

Still, it was sad to say goodbye to Red Rover. It had taken me to many Graftons in our two years of bonding. That it wasn't my fault made it a little easier. One great thing happened, though. My license had actually fallen between my seat and the seat divider in the middle of car, out of sight until I was forced to comb every inch of what was left of it. I had my license back. Yay.

I knew, though, as a lawyer friend told me, that I would get screwed by the damage settlement. There was no way that the true value of Red Rover would be completely paid back. So I took a deep breath and decided to take some money out of my WEAC IRA, which I hadn't touched since it was originally created out of contractual arrangement at the end of my teaching career. I figured that it was there exactly for this kind of reason--a bad break that I could cover. What the hell. Again, I can pay it off without the annoying, life-altering monthly payments.

Meanwhile, I rented another car to order my laptop, on which I am presently writing this. Total access is still days away, since it's been so long since someone asked me my password to my Google e-mail account that I've forgotten it and Apple is putting a hold on access to my account. But I can get into it via my android anyhow, and my Word file can wait a few days. 

Bottom line: I'm writing again. The wait got frustrating. But it's not as if there's nothing to write about, huh? Feels great, though.

If you're one who has been waiting, my thanks. If you're one tapping in for the first time, welcome. There's plenty more to come.

I got another car, from Heiser Toyota. It's another Toyota Camry Hybrid, with about 80,000 fewer miles. It's jet black. I have dubbed it Midnight. It's a sweet machine.

Enough of that. Brings you up to date. Meanwhile, both political parties have convened, and one was impressive (Bet you can figure out which one). I must say I didn't watch much of one, but I must also say that I didn't really have to. More on that later.

Once I was a teacher, and I taught; then I was a union leader, and I led; then I was an organizer, and I organized. But all along, I wrote. Now the rest has fallen away, and I'm a writer. Thanks for indulging.

Be well. Be careful. Wear a mask. With another one of my nine lives spent, and with some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark