Yesterday friends L and T and I went out for a glorious early fall afternoon on the boat. We were able to pull into one of the slips at Agua Verde and get take out (two Tacos de Bagre and one Burrito Puerco), which we then took out to the middle of Lake Washington between the two floating bridges. The water was glassy calm, so we went really fast. We stopped at Luther Burbank park to use the toilets. I've been several times since we got the boat, and each time it's easier to climb up the steep hill to the facilities. Yesterday I was hardly breathing hard at all.
After we returned the boat, T drove me to Ballard to pick up my car, poor dear 4-Runner, at the body shop, where L had helped me drop it off the day before.
Yes, it's true, I smashed up, very, very slightly (but oh, it felt painful to me!) the panels in both the driver's door and the passenger door on the left side of my car. This happened in the SCCA garage about ten days ago, after my infusion, when I was pulling out (of a handicapped spot no less) to go home. I didn't see the pillar behind me, and as I backed and turned, I slid right into it, scraping white paint in about a 6-inch oval on the two doors of the car. I also scraped the running board, but as that didn't involve a large spot of white paint on a red car, but just some almost invisible scratching, I decided to let it go.
I was embarrassed about the whole thing, because I'd just written such a glowing account of my own abilities as a driver. The truth is, though, that this is only the 3rd time in my life as a driver that I've driven into anything, the first time being when I was 15 and driving our '63 Galaxie convertible and I ran (slowly) into an alder sapling as I turned into a driveway (Mom: "You're going to hit that tree!" Me: "No I'm not!" CRASH!); the second being when I pulled a borrowed car into the garage of the house I was housesitting and crunched part of its doorframe against a boulder (note—there was an identical crunch two inches away on the same door frame).
Anyway, before I could decide whether or not to tell anyone aside from immediate family, Ian outed me to Dr. Jason in my appointment with him. Now, Dr. Jason had only just granted me permission to drive anyway, so I was a little hesitant to let him know that maybe he'd been hasty. But he just laughed and said that that accident wasn't my fault—it was entirely the fault of the engineering of the parking garage. And really, it is a very difficult garage.
Fortunately, it didn't cost much to get the blemishes repaired, however, and the car came home last night looking like new.
And now no one else will ever have to know.
2 comments:
Calin,
I sympathize with you completely. I've never hit one of those monsters but I've come too close for comfort a couple of times.
Since then, I've made a close study of them and I've found they tend to move anywhere from six inches to an entire foot closer to the car once you are out of sight.
Dee
Calin,
How old were you when you decided that you were going to take the Ford out of the barn and hit the wet dirt at high speed and got it very stuck and took a few things off the bottom of it? Your Mother wasn't home at the time. Do you remember?
I'm so glad you are feeling better.
Love A.K.K.
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