October 24, 2010

  • My Weekend Monumental Experience

    There's a million and one reasons why my car isn't perfect. After sitting in the driver's seat for a while without the radio, the noise that it makes is amplified; that's a good thing when you can hear the dual exhaust in the back as you accelerate from a traffic light. However, it can also be bad. There are some things that the car does that you would find annoying, and you could find many reasons why you wouldn't want to buy this car. And why would you anyways when you can buy an 87' Firebird that has a massive 350 engine as opposed to a 305? The only advantage that an 85' Firebird has is the appearance, but that could be just a personal opinion. If I had the choice, would I rather buy an 87' than a 85'? Absolutely.

     

    While my mom owned the car, she made a promise to me that if I didn't do drugs or drink alcohol, she'd give me the car by the age of 16. Unfortunately, I was kicked out of my mom's house before the age of 16 and didn't expect to see the car ever again. Even though it wasn't the most perfect car, I loved that car and was looking forward to it becoming mine. I was excited about taking my friends for a ride on it. The truth was that I thought I was going to be the most bad-ass guy in the school because I had the most nicest car. I was even stupid enough to think that my car would make women cream their pants and drool over me. But after 16, all hope was lost. Even though my aunt offered to give me her 2002 Ford Ranger for an affordable price, I still denied that offer because my heart was still with the 85' Firebird.

    On graduation day, it finally happened. Despite it being totally obvious, I saw a 2003 gold Mustang and started freaking out from excitement. The car that I was actually getting was BEHIND the gold Mustang and it turned out to be the 85' Firebird that I've longed for so long. From the excitement and fulfillment, I cried because I never thought that I'd see the car again.

    Over the years, my car has been having problems. After spending numerous amounts of money to maintain and fix the car, the car has been doing pretty well. It's never going to be in perfect condition because it's been sitting in a parking lot for several years before my mom actually gave me the car, but it's probably not going to be in much better condition than it is now.

    Now you may be asking...what's this got to do with something monumental that happened recently? Did the transmission go out? Did your car get stolen? Did you wear down the brakes enough to the point that you couldn't stop and ran off a cliff? The answer is no, even though I wish I ran off a cliff.

    I regret to inform you that I got into a car accident. Not just a car accident, mind you, but my very first car accident. Let me first say that, obviously, the damage isn't extensive. My lights still raise up and fully function, and my hood can still be popped open. However, you can also notice that there's black marks on the front bumper. That is from a BMW. Yeeaaahhhh...not the BEST car to hit, but definitely not the worst car either. I try to remain optimistic, and optimism really paid off because I was really upset but never really managed to cry. When giving the driver my car insurance information, I've even managed to crack a few jokes, smile, and be energetic, but it was obvious that I was very nervous. The only reason why I was nervous was because I couldn't find my car insurance card and he was threatening to call the cops. I said "go ahead", but before he could do that...I managed to find the card in my wallet. But let's rewind a little bit before the accident occured:

     

    It was a beautiful Friday afternoon on October 22nd, 2010. Sometime in the afternoon, I decided to go to the gym because I was allowed to use my grandmother's car; if I can use someone else's gas to avoid paying my own, then that'd just give me more reason to go to the gym. Before I left, my grandmother remembered she had to be somewhere and I had to take my car instead. I didn't mind, really, because it wasn't like my car was going to over-heat and I've had plenty of gas to at least make it home from traffic (they don't call muscle cars "gas guzzlers" for no reason). With the windows rolled down and my arm resting on the door, I was really enjoying myself: beautiful Friday afternoon, I was going to get some much needed exercise, and my sister was coming over for the weekend. But it turns out that I was enjoying the drive too much. I was paying attention to the road, but I wasn't exactly paying attention to the BMW that was stopping a few feet in front of me. I had enough time to slam on my brakes, but with an old 2,000 or so pound vehicle, the tires locked up and sent me skidding into the BMW and ended up rear-ending it. For my first accident, I really thought it wasn't bad damage. Of course, looks can be deceiving so I didn't really jump to conclusions at the time. All I knew was that the driver owned a BMW, and he was a Vice President to some bank and he was arguably pissed for some reason. He never called the cops, but I decided to not work out that day. I was pissed at myself and didn't trust my driving.

     

    Instead of telling you all the things that were running through my mind, I will just say that I was very shocked about what happened. I realize that one day I'd get into an accident, but I didn't expect to be in one in the same year. Since I've had the car, I've avoided a couple accidents, people have hit me, but I was never the cause of anything...till now. The question that was mostly running through my mind was "is this really happening?" After impacting the BMW, I sat there with my mouth wide open thinking "is this a nightmare? Brandon...wake up. Brandon...time to wake up." But this was no nightmare, this was really happening. Coming back home, I told my dad the news, choking on every word, struggling to fight the tears, and I finally went to my room, put on my headphones, listened to music, until I had the strength to get up and move on with my day.

    Even though my sister was spending the weekend at my house, I was still upset and my dad didn't make it any better. He got me so frustrated to the point that I threatened to punch him in the face. He even said that I was "sick" for even thinking about punching him in the face, and I said that even my uncle wanted to punch him in the face for being a douchebag. It was obvious that I was frustrated, had a lot going on, upset over a lot of things, and he had no right to piss me off even more. And to be quite honest, I should have punched him but I didn't because I wouldn't really do it even if I wanted to. Surprisingly enough, I have self-control.

    Needless to say, I've learned from this experience and will try to prevent this from happening again. I was driving safe, but now I'm driving safer. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.