emchy

So I did one of those "answer these questions, send around to your friends and let's all get to know random facts" sorts of emails earlier
they tend to amuse me and if nothing else, start some interesting conversations and remind folks on opposite coasts that we do indeed still exist and hey maybe we should write

so in all of this - some co-workers were on the recipient list
and the question over and over is

in answer to
"how many car accidents have you been in?"
I said "Seven" which is wrong, it's actually eight, with a death toll of four cars

is that a lot?

Let's break it down
as a Michigan native I lost three cars to deer before leaving the state
including
1. 13th day of being 16 and being a driver, on my first night out on the town (ie study date at a friends house ona school night) I completely smushed the radiator into the engine block when I hit a deer - i was going 85 miles an hour - I was a peta card carrying vegetarian - I killed the hell out of both the car and the deer

2. while on a road trip in the upper peninsula when I was 19, a deer ran out across the road and I side swiped it - bye car, bye deer

3. random deer smash - details fuzzy

Then we have the random acts of idiot

me - 20, driving forward through a green light, 16 year old boy turns left into my car, reason: and I quote "dude I couldn't see you car, it was white"
this of course happened at around 1 in the afternoon on a lear and sunny day, he was driving north...

me- tipsy passenger in my own car, Emily decides that she doesn't need a lot of room to break on icy roads - bump - there's another car

me - 19 driving a car load of potheads to the Cypress Hill show in Detroit so I can go to the open mic at Gotham City Cafe while they're at the show, when exiting the freeway, the car following me because they don't know how to get to Detroit rear ends me, why? they're very stoned. A few hours of using a sledgehammer to get the back bumper off of the rear tire so I can drive Kima's car back to our small town ensue (second car heads off to concert with my directions in hand)

me - 17 (and dumb) let Steven drive my car, with me as passenger to the liquor store since he needs practice driving - he hits a parked car

does the time in 1997 in oakland when my window got smashed out count?

and finally, the grand finale
Spring 2003 - I am driving home from a pop culture conference at UC Santa Cruz, when on the 20, near the Alemany Exit, a pair of teenagers are racing in the right lane, one of them hits a Jaguar and then spins into the next lane hitting a HUGE ford fashion pick up pushing it into my lane, where I go smash and am slammed into the guard wall - yes indeed - four car pile up for little old me. It even made it into the Chronicle.

So there's 8, nine if you count the window smash. But over 16 year of driving - it's not really so bad, is it?