Sep 18, 2007

just exactly what I needed

So, after a long day teaching out in the wilderness,
I come home and climb into bed from sheer exhaustion. It's pretty much all I can do after a day of work nowadays. By 8 pm I'm asleep.

Tonight, half awake, I hear a knock on my door. I open it to find my downstairs neighbor.

"Are you parked in front of the building?" He asks. "Ummm...I think so," I answer. I honestly had forgotten where I'd parked.
"Is that your car, the gray one?" "Yeah," I answer.

"Oh, man, somebody's hit your car."

We run down to the street to see the front of my car crumpled up like a piece of paper.

A white car, even more crumpled, air bag inflated in the driver's seat, axle twisted, tires deflated, shattered plastic and glass everywhere, is lodged about a foot into the front end of my car. It looks like they've been merged into one.

There's a crowd gathered around. The neighbor across the street tells us that he saw it happen. The driver, driving 50 miles an hour or more, hit two cars up the street, hit the car in front of me (my insane neighbor's by the way) and then finally hit mine, coming to a sudden stop.

He jumped out of the car and ran off. He's a heavyset (no doubt drunken) black man, about 40 years old, that's all they could tell.

I called the police, only to be told that they had already received a call. Nearly an hour later they actually show up. (God help us had someone been raped or robbed.)
They take the information. They (presumably..hopefully) are searching the culprit.

The neighborhood is still filled with milling people and cop cars.
I've just finished giving all my information to the police. It's taken 3 hours, and I'm dead tired.

Anyway, the short version of this story is that now I have no car and have to figure out some way to work tomorrow at 6 am.

ahem

8 comments:

mrpeenee said...

o sweetie, I keep being amazed that things can possibly get worse there. I'm so sorry.

Dave said...

Well, there's always New Orleans' ever-dependable public transportation. Ah-HAH-hah-hah-hah-hah...

Oh, sorry dude, that wasn't even funny.

Silly Monkey said...

Oh, man, Jason, doesn't it ever end? How are you going to get it fixed? It sounds totalled.

Miss Janey said...

Jason,

Sorry to hear this. How awful. Miss Janey is familiar with bad luck upon bad luck. She hopes it passes quickly for you.

Michael Guy said...

Kindred spirit: I was in bed last night at 7:19pm. I was tired and saw no point in continuing a blah mood.

But very sorry to learn of your misfortune. I dread any knock at the door; it's never good news.

Well, once the neighbors dropped off some lemon bars. That was good news.

Thombeau said...

What a fucking drag. Stay strong, man. And positive!

ayeM8y said...

I got a sinking feeling reading that post. So sorry to hear about your car, I know that having one is crucial from the standpoint of navigating New Orleans and for one's safety. The public transportation there can be questionable if not dangerous and I trust your friends and neighbors will be kind enough to offer assistance. I hope the police catch the bastard!

Breezy said...

I'm sorry to hear that Jason. I was parked in front of Marshall's house and some kids decided to drive by and break every other car's side windows on his block.

When things like that happen and you're not present during the incident you feel worst somehow. I always feel especially violated.

I hope you're able to get to work tomorrow. Keep us updated.