Bumpers, Bats and Coat Hangers

In general, I’m not one to post long personal anecdotes. For one thing, I’d like to think I know my audience. I mean, I’m not Britney Spears, and you’re probably not some fourteen year old girl searching for the latest tips on cool clothes and hot guys. This being said, sometimes things happen that are worth chronicling. Take last night for example:

All of the fun began after our small groups had let out of YAM around 10pm. Rod asked if anyone would be interested in grabbing a bite to eat. We took a quick survey and found nine or ten hearty souls willing to continue their conversations over some late night snacks at Applebee’s.

Next thing I know, Matt, Olinka, Chris, Beth and myself are waiting for a table. Meanwhile, Rod calls me. Bad news: He’s been rear ended (fortunately he’s okay). Worse news: He was rear ended in his brand new truck which he has had for seven days. Still Worse: It was a hit and run. So, he tells me that he won’t be able to join us as he is waiting for the police.

Back at Applebee’s, we get seated pretty quickly. David, Ryan and Hillary eventually filter in. As everyone is in a fairly jovial mood, Olinka tells me to call Rod and let him know that we’ll probably still be here when he gets done. Perhaps he would even like for us to order for him?

While I’m on the phone, Rod tells me that the police have shown up. And, to his surprise, he was able to point out the other car in a parking lot across the way. In fact, the driver and her passenger are still sitting in it. So, Rod accompanies the officer as he walks up to the car.

Upon closer inspection, the car is quite banged up. The front driver’s side headlamp is smashed with the front side panel crumpled and scratched all the way back to the driver’s door. The officer asks the driver to roll down her window. “Mam, do you realize that you were just involved in a traffic accident?”

“I don’t think I was.”

At this point I imagine Rod and the officer cocking their heads to the side with questioning looks on their faces. “Well, how do you explain the damage on the front of your vehicle?”

“It’s not damaged officer.”

“Mam, I’m going to need you to get out of your car.” The woman tries to open her door, but it won’t budge. She locks and unlocks the door a couple of times before the officer asks, “Can you explain to me why you can’t get out of your car?”

“No,” she says as she continues to fumble. “I can’t.”

“Well mam, you’re going to need to crawl over and get out on the other side.”

Her passenger gets out, rises to her feet, and wobbles away from the door. The driver comes out behind her, and the officer walks her over to the back of Rod’s truck. “Look at what you did to this man’s truck.” She starts crying and the officer tells Rod he can go on.

Rod joins us at our table just in time to put in an order and join the conversation. We spend the next hour or so enjoying our food and each other’s company. Our conversation covers a gambit of topics: David spends several minutes expounding on his preference for expository preaching. Olinka, Hillary and Ryan offer a defense for other methods. At one point, Olinka asks David why he chooses to go to church with us since he feels this way. Reminding me of an Italian, he spreads his arms and says, “It’s because I love you people”.

Hillary and Beth talk about work and mention that they need to sit down for a “coffee talk” the next time they’re in the office. David asks me what this is about. I explain that Beth is working for Hillary now as her office assistant.

Later, while we’re waiting on our checks, I head to the rest room. On the way back to the table, I discover that my keys aren’t in my pockets. Hopefully, they’ll be in my jacket. Not wanting to squeeze back to where I was sitting, I take a seat behind Hillary and listen as the conversation winds down.

Olinka and Matt are talking about Noam Chomsky and his contributions to linguistic theory. Olinka favors Chomsky’s theory that language is a representation of more complex thoughts in our minds. “For example,” she says, “Matt sometimes asks me to tell him what I’m thinking and it takes me five minutes to explain this idea that took a second to think about.”

Matt adds, “Or how about when you can’t think of the word for something, but you’re thinking of what you want to say.”

Eventually, we make our way out of the restaurant. I start fumbling around in my jacket. Still no sign of my keys. Beth and I check the car. We can’t see them. We check back in the restaurant. I ask if they have a wire coat hanger. No luck.

Outside, Matt, Olinka, and Ryan are listening as Rod recounts his traffic incident. No one has a coat hanger. Fortunately, we catch Hillary before she leaves. She offers to go to her house and get one for us. We listen to Rod while we wait for Hillary.

Ten minutes later, Hillary gets back. I unravel the coat hanger and start threading it through the window into my car. While I’m doing this, Hillary tells Beth that she thinks a bat flew into her house. She says, “On the way out, the door nob fell off, and while I was reaching down to pick it up, this big black thing whooshed over my head and knocked something over in the house.”

After working with the coat hanger for a minute or so, I get it in place over the power lock button. I push it back opening the door. I get in and find my keys sitting in the cup holder. (Note to self: Never tell anyone how easy it is to break into your car.)

Meanwhile, Hillary is in a bit of a quandary as to what she should do. We talk things over with Matt, Olinka, Ryan and Rod. Our best advice is for Hillary to call animal control. After she talks with them, Hillary calls her roommates to warn them to not leave their rooms and to not be frightened when an animal control truck pulls into their driveway.

By now, it is 1:30am with each of us finally heading home. On the way out of the parking lot, I stop by Rod’s truck and shoot a picture. He tells me I ought to be an insurance claims agent. I mention to Beth that this evening is definitely going in my blog.

Update:
This morning while I am typing this up, Beth calls me. I’m expecting her to give me an update on the bat as she is working over at Hillary’s today. The first words out of her mouth are, “I’m calling to tell you I’ve been in an accident.”

“What? Are you okay?” This almost seems like a joke.

“I’m fine,” she says, “but my bumper got a little banged up. The good thing is that it wasn’t my fault. I was driving down Johnson Road when a KUB truck backed out of the driveway and hit the side of my car. The driver was real nice about it. He apologized and admitted it was his fault which is a good thing because otherwise it looks like I rear-ended him.”

She goes on to tell me what a big deal the whole thing was. In addition to a police officer investigating the accident, KUB also sent out their own insurance claims agent and the driver’s manager. Plus, as a matter of policy, the driver can’t be back on the road until he’s taken a drug test.

At this point, I’m thinking I’d better quit writing this post before more crazy things happen. That being said, let’s make this “The End”; however, once I get word, I’ll probably add another update as to what happened with the bat at Hillary’s house last night…