Crash

As the old curse goes: "May you live in interesting times."

Today, my car was rear-ended. Bad. As in, "Dude, your car is fucked up!" I was actually on my way to get it inspected. I was fairly certain it wouldn't pass, since it's a piece of shit. Now, I'm really fucking certain it won't pass.

My car is (was?) a '91 Topaz. Two of the four power door locks don't work (right side). Two of the four power windows don't work (left side). The AC is busted. The tailpipe is bent. The bumper is missing on the left-hand side of the car. The radio has a weird habit of getting louder of softer without anyone touching it. The blinkers light up, but they don't actually blink. And lately it's been leaking engine coolant like a bitch. "Why bother to get it inspected," you ask? Good question, numbnuts.

The deal is, I'm buying a Dodge Stratus from my pal, Flan, in a week or two (or three). In the meantime, my Topaz is due for inspection by the end of this month. With only a few days left before my inspection sticker expires, I figured I'd go and fail, giving me (I think) 30 days (or so) before I would have to go for re-inspection. By then, I'd have Flan's car, and the Topaz would be but a dim memory.

So, as I'm on my way to (ostensibly) fail inspection, some goober rear-ends me. I was stopped in traffic. The guy in front of me stopped short, and I hit the brakes. I think we were going around 30 m.p.h, and I had just enough time to think how good it was that as much of a piece of shit my car is, the brakes are just fine. Then, *CRASH!* A guy in a Dodge Ram (how appropriate) um...rammed me, pushing my car into the guy in front of me. Fuckshitpiss!

The fucker hit me pretty hard, sending all of the crap (magazines, CD's, empty Monster cans, etc.) from my back seat into the front. After the smoke cleared, I got out of my car to check the damage. The guy in front of me was fine. There was just a little scratch on his bumper (I don't even know what kind of car it was. Since there was no damage, I immediately put it out of mind. Some small, red car. I dunno.). The front of my car was fine, just a small dent in the license plate.

I walked around to the back of my car to discover an entirely different story. The whole rear end was fucked. The trunk was pushed dead center up into the car. The bumper was hanging off the back by a thread (Blatant exaggeration: it was actually held in place by a little bit of plastic. Whatever.). Remarkably, none of the tail lights were so much as cracked. They were just sticking out at strange angles. The guy's van was a bit fucked up-a cracked grill and a busted turn signal. His bumper was gone. Not gone as in "disintegrated by the awesome force of the impact," but more like "never fucking existed!" He had no goddamn bumper. Bastard. I'm pretty sure if he had one, my car would've been spared such damage.

The van driver was fine. I was fine. The guy in front of me was...difficult. He was on his cell phone the whole time. I was trying to talk to him, to tell him that his car was fine, and that he should just leave, so the other guy and I could pull off to the side of the highway. He ignored me.

See, we were on rt. 46 East in Wayne, at 4 p.m.- not a good thing. Much traffic. Even worse, we were in the middle of the road. Here's a diagram:

<46>= red car
four lanes > ___________________ <2>= me
__<1> <2> <3>_______ <3>= van
___________________

All the traffic was passing us on both sides-very dangerous. I wanted the guy in front of me to either leave, or pull off to our left, so we would block the left lane, instead of a middle lane. He wouldn't budge, and we couldn't move unless he did. He was still on his cell (speaking Spanish), and I could tell it was a social call, not the police. He finally got out of his car to check if there was any damage. There really wasn't. There were two minor scratches on his bumper, but they could've already been there. It wasn't exactly a mint condition luxury car. I told him that he should just leave, since there was really no damage, and his car was preventing us from moving off to the side of the road. He pointed at the (tiny!) scratch, and muttered something unintelligible in Spanish. He said he doesn't speak any English, so I tried to reason with him in Spanish, to no avail. My Spanish is shaky (although, I can pretty much tell someone to go fuck themselves about a hundred different ways-thanks to Carlos, Manuel, and all the other guys I work with), but I definitely got my point across. The guy still refused to budge. Fucker.

I was beginning to get pissed off. Luckily, the guy behind me spoke fluent Spanish, so he gave it a shot. No dice. The stubborn bastard refused to pull off to the side of the road. Now we wait for the police to arrive. Bad enough I had to deal with the guy who hit me constantly asking me if I was okay while making excuses for how/why he hit me, the whole thing was punctuated by the mellifluous sound of dozens of pissed off commuters honking their horns and cursing at us. Joy.

Finally, the police showed up and blocked traffic so we could pull off into a gas station. While the officer was busy getting the information from the guy in the first car (that stubborn prick), the guy who hit me tried his hand at making idle conversation. I was a little shaken up, but I was very calm, very Zen, very Jedi. I told him it was all good, these things happen, at least no one was hurt, etc. The only time I got a little hot was when the guy asked me if I had anything valuable in the trunk, since anything that was in there was pretty much squished. I explained to him that luckily my trunk was at the moment empty, but I usually have my (very expensive, and very dear to me) bass guitar and amp in there. I said something like "If my bass had been in there when you hit me, we would be having a very different kind of interaction right now." I guess I was still a little shaken up by the collision, and I must've had a nutty look in my eyes, because the guy actually seemed to become a bit freaked out, and started glancing nervously toward the police officer. It was a very surreal moment. I was kind of digging the fact that this guy was frightened of me, cruising on the adrenaline caused by the accident, perhaps. Luckily, my better nature won out, and I calmed down, reassuring him that all was well. I was still kind of jumpy, though, and almost bummed a smoke off of him. I don't smoke cigarettes, but I thought one might help to calm my nerves. Then I caught a whiff of his smoke. It smelled like complete ass. I don't know what brand this cat smokes, but holy shit, was it rank. Kind of like a cat shit/hot dumpster/skunk ass/yeast infection/badger crap/frumunda cheese/septic tank combo. No thanks.

Anyhow, the cop took down all of our statements and information, and sent us on our merry way. At this point, I just wanted to go home. Fuck inspection. I'll deal with it tomorrow. I have to get the accident report Friday (three business days!) and fax the info to my friendly Geico representative. They're going to be thrilled. I just switched over to them from State Farm (Boooo!) a month ago. I don't have "collision" (I'm ghetto), so I have to rely on "Van Guy's" insurance to hook me up. I'm hoping they junk the car and give me book value for it. I know, good luck. I hope I get some cash out of the deal, so I can put it towards Flan's car. I'm just waiting for him to get his new ride, so I can pimp the Stratus.

In the meantime, I don't even know if I can drive my Topaz. It runs fine (well, as "fine" as it ever did), but I'm pretty sure it's not "street legal" with the whole ass-end pushed in. Plus, it's just plain embarrassing to drive it around. Everyone looks at me like I'm a crackhead. Also, since the trunk won't open, I can't fit my gear in there for gigs. Just my luck, I have four gigs this week alone. Maybe I can scam my boss into letting me use the work truck for the shows. I'll figure it out-I always do. After all, I'm Shawn Hendricks, muthafucka!

I'm going to post a picture or two of my newly customized Topaz on my main site
http://www.losinfartos.homestead.com so you can all have a good laugh. Then, I'm going to have a glass of Wild Turkey and a "special cigarette" and watch my new DVD copy of "Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning." If you're not familiar with the "Ginger Snaps" series of movies, you're missing out. Do a search on http://www.imdb.com

Stay black.