karmaconniption

Maybe it was bad karma from the rant I posted earlier today, maybe it was just total randomness, but I'd never been in a car accident before.

So, yes, I'm going to recount all the gory details because I'm self-involved and want people to feel sorry for me. And why shouldn't I? I had a traumatic experience going less than 5 miles an hour!

I left the house around two fifteen to go to the thrift store a few miles away to check out furniture. I was less than three blocks from the store when I was stopped in traffic at a red light on MacDill down in the SoHo area. Traffic moved along slowly, and I realized that I had really bad coffee breath from my IHOP brunch with Gabe and Nina, so I reached into my purse (which was on my lap) and was fumbling around for some gum when all of a sudden I couldn't breathe.

I felt like someone had punched me in the face- I couldn't see or hear and the car was filled with smoke. I was dazed, and my first thought was that the car had exploded or caught on fire. I threw open the door and stumbled out into oncoming traffic.

I don't know how I didn't get hit, but I was standing there looking at the car when things started to register. My airbags had exploded and the smoke was coming from the carbon activators. My head was reeling, my ear was ringing, and I didn't know what had happened.

The woman in the car behind me got out and led me to the side of the road. The car in front of me, some type of obnoxious SUV with a "BUSH/CHENEY" bumper sticker on it (of course), was stopped and a skinny-ass typical South Tampa mom got out and looked at her bumper. Not a scratch on her precious SUV. The bumper of my car had a slight scrape in it but was otherwise unharmed. My airbags had deployed from a fender bender going less than five miles an hour.

My chest was burned from the chemicals, I couldn't breathe, my face was pounding from the impact, and my left boob hurt so badly I thought it was broken. Instantly, all these little old ladies in bright summer dresses and beautiful hats (the rich south tampa ladies) surrounded me, touched my face and my forehead, and began saying prayers for me. They were so sweet. A little old man ran out into traffic, put my car in neutral and pushed it to the side of the road. The Bush Bitch kept saying, "Um, my car's fine, I gotta get the kids home, can I just go?" while the woman from the car behind me called the police.

I called Gabe, who left work immediatly and drove death defyingly through cross-town traffic at 3pm on a Friday afternoon, and I called my aunt who lived nearby and came right over.

The airbags had blown out the passenger's side window and cracked the windshield like a spiderweb. As I said before, the bumpers were relatively unharmed. I'd just hit it in the exact right place to deploy the air bags.

The police never showed up, so Gabe drove me to the hospital while my aunt drove the car (which is completely drivable) to her friend's house nearby because at this point it was about to storm like hell and she didn't want rain to get in the car through the busted window. The Bush Bitch thrust her information at me and fled the scene.

We only spent about two and a half hours at the hospital where they checked me for a concussion or any internal bleeding (there was none), did a pregnancy test to ensure I could be X-rayed (there was none, thank goodness), then X-rayed my chest and ribs.

So, I'm okay, nothing was broken, but the seatbelt lacerated my left tit and put bruises from my left shoulder down to my right abdomen from cutting into me. The airbag bruised my face, my chest, and my abdomen but the burns from the carbon faded away soon after the impact.

I'm not kidding- my left tit is the color of a grape (the purple ones) and has this nasty oozing abrasion across it from the seatbelt. It's so gross.

I'm pretty sore, but they gave me Vicodin, so I'm feeling kind of mellow now. My aunt and uncle drove the car back to my house and fitted a trashbag over the window to protect it.

Work gave me off tomorrow and Sunday, and I'm off Monday too, so I have a few days to rest and recuperate. Gabe's off all weekend too= a rarity, so we're just hanging out.

I know this was like the longest entry ever, but I was really terrified. I'd never been in a car accident before and had no idea you could get so injured from "safety features." I was at a dead stop in traffic and then barely going more than three or four miles an hour when Bush Bitch slammed on her brakes (as people in Florida do) and I didn't even have time to hit the brake or react. All I remember is the punch in the face and smoke everywhere.

I'm getting all worked up now- time to go take another Vicodin and wash it down with a nice cold glass of Chardonnay.

PS: I quit smoking a month ago. Not that that's relavant, but I thought you'd like to know it's been over a month.