Dear God, It's Me Again, Can't Catch a Fucking Break.

    Anyone remember my super devastating car crash? The one that killed my best friend? And still continues to ruin me every time I get drunk enough to remember I am in actually super crippling grief?

    Remember that?

    WELL GUESS WHO CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF HER CATCH A GODDAMN BREAK.

    And why is it always on a trip to California? California, what are you trying to say? Am I supposed to stay, and that's why I break down? Do you hate me and that's my punishment? Does it matter to me?

    So I'm driving to California, right, because I have to go to USC, to see the super misogynistic doctor who is very obsessed with what my medication is going to do to my womb, if I ever bear fruit, as if I'm bearing fruit at all right now.

    And I'm driving safely! It's a bright sunny day, dry roads, light traffic, I am in the left lane behind a black pick up truck, with enough space between us to fit an RV. I know this because there's an RV in the middle lane, next to us, that is driving neatly in that space. We've been driving in this trio for a while now.

    The truck's bed cover flaps a little in the wind he creates as a truck-- the truck driver is a he, c'mon. you all know I'm right. I'm paying attention a little because it's flapping and not much else motion wise is changing, and I'm talking to my sister.

    By all accounts, another safe drive.

    I'm so naïve at this point.

    The truck bed cover flaps once more, and then is suddenly airborne. I see it flying backwards, and think that it is flying too high to hit me. Nevertheless, I start a slow drift to the left. Slow because there's a dirt median if I go too fast, and also because I think I'm just being dramatic about it. I don't want to overreact, but just in case.

    L. O. L

    That truck cover slams into my windshield like nothing, slices through my car and whips down the passenger side in a fluid motion. Where Dani's accident felt like crunchy peanut butter, this one is like a waterfall. It happens, I'm screaming, but I'm still driving straight.

    Mechanically, she is sound. I am driving straight, and driving well enough to speed up and start honking at the other driver, who has merged into the middle lane. Presumably, I think, to pull over. 

    I have too much faith in humanity. As soon as I start honking and he sees me, the black pick up truck speeds away. Fuck me, I guess.

    I can't keep chasing him because my car is absolutely wrecked. Brutally wrecked. My windshield has two holes in it, and driving after him as long as I did was blowing so much glass shards at me, and I was covered in glass already. If I hadn't had my sunglasses on, I would've gotten glass in my eyes.

    The sunglasses and slow drift to the left end up saving my life. If I hadn't moved, the bed cover would've come right for me, and the way it moved... Let's just say there's probably another universe where I died on the highway with no one to know where I was.

    I pull over, and am hyperventilating on the phone with my sister. I know I am fine, I figure the car is fine, but there's the little matter of the glass covering every inch of my body, and the damage to my windshield. So my sister talks me through my panic, and hangs up so I can call the police.

    I call Nick. Out of the two of us, I'm better at on the fly problem solving, but he's more logical. I'm very cavalier and he's very thought out. So I call Nick, because I'm scared and don't know what to do. I'm stranded on the side of the road. Part of this is funny to me, and I end up laughing in the short manic bursts of the panicked person.

    Nick tells me I need to get out of the car and look at the damage, shake the glass off, and call the police. He asks me where I am, what happened, and tries to calm me down. You know, like 911 dispatchers do when they ask you questions you know the answers to multiple times. They're not necessarily asking because they didn't hear you or think you're stupid. It's because everyone knows you start with what the person will know for sure, and go from there. The questions have the added benefit of calming me down.

    To get out, I have to wait for a line of semi trucks to leave, because I was so scared I didn't even pull over properly. There's maybe six inches between my driver door and the semi. When there's a break, I get out, and run to the other side of my car. I shake the glass and survey the damage. Nick is still talking to me. I am afraid to move my car anymore. Even though she felt fine while driving, I'm afraid to turn her back on and make it worse.

    The damage is this: my windshield is shattered with two holes in it, my rearview mirror is dangling, my dashboard has split in two, my hood is scraped and dented, my A frame pillar is gouged, my side view mirror was ripped from my car. In short, I have one mirror and a car blowing glass every time. I can't drive.

    I make all the necessary phone calls and Progressive says the tow will take a few hours because they have to specially authorize a tow across state lines. I would end up waiting at the side of the highway for five hours until the tow truck comes and we bring her back to Vegas. 

    Nick makes the Vegas phone calls for me. He calls Mazda, via my saleslady, who is such a good person that we still stay in touch sometimes. She calls him Nissan Nick. She calls the service manager to tell him I'm coming and to look for me. 

    Now I just wait. I have little scrapes from glass, my wrist hurts oddly, and my back is on fire. I don't have water. Baker desert is one of the hardest deserts for cars because of the heat. A lot of Baker requires AC being turned off to avoid overheating the engine. And I'm on the side of the road, waiting. 

   

    Eventually I pee on the side of the road because I'm waiting for the tow truck, and I'm ten miles from Baker, the city I was actually going to stop and pee in.

    When I get to Mazda, true to his word, the service manager comes out for me. Five service guys come to look at the damage. I step out with them and make a joke about how bad it is.

    One of them tells me it's so bad he can't believe I'm not in the hospital. They can't believe I just walked away. 

    But Mazdas, for better or worse, have always kept me safe. You could say that's a coincidence, but how else did I walk away from two accidents that could've seriously injured me or killed me? Just a slight angle for either one, and I'd have been in the hospital, not waiting on the side of the road.

    The good news is that she is mechanically sound. The bed cover flying up and then crashing down benefitted in that nothing in the engine was damaged. The service guy drove her to the body shop. 

    And then the original service guy I'd spoken to looks at me and tells me he thinks it'll take a month to fix, maybe two. Depending on how easy it is to get the parts.

    Mother. Fucker.

    I really truly cannot handle this year. My entire world crashed when Dani did, and anyone reading these can look at my profile to know how truly not over her I am, and how I never will be. I killed my best friend, and the universe has been getting revenge since.

    I'm over 2024. Do you guys remember that How I Met Your Mother episode where Sandy Rivers disappears on New Year's Eve, and Robin has to do the news, and says that she hasn't had a good year but is going to count them into... 2012? 2011? Whatever. She says she's going to count them because she just can't do it anymore.

    I just cannot do it anymore. Everything costs money, everything is a new expense that came out of nowhere, and I am not interested in it.

    And this would all be super concerning, I'm sure, my sudden lack of interest in life, where it not for the When We Were Young festival, which consists mostly of posers who made fun of emo kids in middle/high school, but My Chemical Romance is playing the entirety of The Black Parade and Fall Out Boy will be there too, and so damn if I will miss that. I plan on getting absolutely obliterated on those emo nights. 

    Damn if I will miss the trip to Alaska Nick and I are taking to see the Northern Lights.

    And I'm so clinically unwell about emo nights that when Emo Night Brooklyn posted about their ten year anniversary show in actual Brooklyn, I bought three tickets, and then a fourth VIP for the commemorative lanyard, private bathroom, and private bar. Nick, Nick's cousin, and I are going to go. I just have to fly to Brooklyn.

    Small details. If I can survive a windshield ripping through my car, I'm sure I can figure this out too.

    Anyway, feel free to compare your life to mine. Pretty much all it's good for right now is making people feel better about theirs.

    Love,

        Jackie