THE CRASH - *not* a hip 80's britpunk band
Having told this story to several people, I soon discovered that it's fun story fodder, and it ought to be shared.

Ladies and Gentlemen - cars and I...we don't go together. We're like peanut butter and pickles. Putting orange pulp into milk. I don't know if it's the female Asian thing or the michichu should become a demolition derby driver thing. We've just never really gotten along - I want to make it work, and I need them, but they're like, 'sorry baby, it's not gonna work out,' and I'm like, 'come on, I swear I'll change, let's give it another try, all you need is love' and then they're stupid and give in and I destroy them because I own them and that's just what I do to things I love.

We're in an abusive relationship, and I don't know what it is, maybe I have Daddy issues or something, but I just can't seem to end this cycle.



So this most recent crash probably came as a surprise to nobody but me. It's the one thing my mother's always feared, after all, the very reason she calls my cell at 10 pm, 12 am, 1 am wondering where I am, even though I'm an adult and have serious moral issues over words like "curfew." Oooohhh, curfew, just thinking about you rankles my hackles! [commence fist-shaking]

...At any rate, as many of you know, I've been extremely stressed and overworked lately. Very tired. I was so tired that --how tired was I?

I was SO tired that I crashed my car.

Because I fell asleep at the wheel.

Allow me to set the scene for you:
I had been up all night four nights in a row, and Friday night I thought I could finally relax. I went out for sushi with my beautiful miikachu (we eat so much sushi that when we finally do lose it we'll know it's just mercury poisoning) and I had been drifting asleep at his apartment, so I decided to head home. I'm about 5 minutes away from home and I was feeling really sleepy, and I knew that I should pull over and nap, but I figured, hey, I'm five minutes away from home.

Heh.

(Those instincts you have, people? Listen to them.)

It's about 1 am at this point, it's absolutely pouring out - the streets are flooded. I'm driving along and next thing I know there's a bang and a thud and a crunch and I'm smelling something horrible, like burning plastic and rubber and the airbag scrapes my face and my foot is still on the gas pedal and I'm skidding along on wet pavement back on the road and finally I brake but the car is still sliding on the water and rain and finally I stop.

And I can't put my car into park. The gear shift is stuck.

The damage:
I blew out two tires and completely destroyed one of the rims. The windshield is cracked and broken (don't ask me how the hell THAT happened) and deployed both airbags. Luckily, there's minimal body damage.

I'm shivering out in the rain and I have to call my dad. My radio is still going and it's playing some cheesy love song.

What my father said:
"You ever see anybody drive on square wheels before? LOOK, SQUARE WHEELS."

How close was I to death?
Well, it's a lucky thing I'm unharmed, but these days I haven't been wearing seatbelts, because I was too cool for that. Or something. Anyway, that night, I was stopped at a traffic light, and, on a whim, I decided to put my seatbelt on.

God.

Thank heaven for small miracles. Shit like this could make an atheist go to Church.

A near-death experience is a fun little term for it. A near-life experience, is what they say in Fight Club. For me I think I'm actually just losing my grip on the world, that little line between dream and reality. "I want to inscape from meality!!" Or I should just fucking get more sleep (but I can't).

On a completely different note, my sexy English prof said to me, "Well, Michi -- and this isn't meant to offend you in any way -- you're not a sociopath." And then after my crash story and discussions of suicidal ideations, we talked about a lady who trapped herself in her boyfriend's trailer bathroom and just sat on a toilet for two years, so long that the skin of her ass actually fused to the plastic of the seat. She had to be surgically removed. He said, "Sebastian [his boyfriend] has been obsessed with this story for days." I laughed and said, "Sebastian and I have a lot of interests in common." His automatic response: "I know, it's deeply disturbing."

♥