Pear Shaped

So Sunday started like many a Sunday in my life, with a terrible hang over. I would like to thank Alyssa and Alex for conspiring to get me that first pint of water. The cause of this celebration? See the previous post

In any case this Sunday was dedicated to one errand. Jackie had ordered 800 popcorn balls for an event on Monday and they had not arrived on Friday as expected and were probably not going to arrive till Tuesday. Jackie’s mission was to come up with eight hundred of something else. The rules were they had to be under $2 each, individually packaged, and had to be festive, as in with xmas trees or something. Eight hundred.

We initially tried Costco but all they seemed to have were gift baskets or bulk cookies (not individually wrapped) so we were screwed there. Jackie had picked up a couple of items from Mollie Stones that looked promising. A sugar cookie with very cool xmas themes in frosting and rice crispy cakes also coated in frosting of the holiday variety.

We stopped by and bought them all. 136. We checked a list they had there and mapped out the seven remaining Mollies Stones’. One more in SF on Portola, Burlingame, San Bruno, Palo Alto, Greenbrae, Sausalito, and San Mateo.

And so we began driving. Portola had none, which set up back a little. Jackie started stressing a little and asked if I’d drive while she peeled the price stickers of the cookies. It seemed to calm her so we were good to go. We were hoping to average 100 per store. But if the rest had ass much as the first stop we’d be okay. Next was San Bruno. 36. Things were looking bad. San Mateo had 3. At this point we were screwed. It was four o’clock and things would be closing soon. We figured we’d head back and hit Burlingame on the way back and try to think of a plan on the way. But luck was with us! Burlingame had over 200. We were back in the game. If we managed to pull off a couple more like that we’d only be a little short.

Obviously we skipped going to San Jose because, come on, were not masochists.

On the way through SF we stopped off at Ghirardelli’s and checked out if they had any filler in case we were short. Red and green Chocolate bars at $1.25 would do the trick but it was getting late and we need to get to the last two Mollie Stones in the North Bay before they close. Greenbrae had over 200. To the employees shock and our glee we filled up three baskets and bought them all. Sausalito had none. We were 250 short. At this point we had been doing this for eight unpaid hours. The car was COMPLETELY packed with backs of cookies. We decided to go to Ghirardelli’s and just pick up 250 bars and be done with it. In retrospect we should have gone there in the first place and just picked up 800 bars because it would have saved us from the second part of our saga.

As we are approaching the bridge on 101 South. We see an accident. At this point the road has four lanes and an emergency lane on the right. In the second lane from the fast lane are two cars stopped. It looks like one has rear-ended the other. Off past the emergency lane in the bushes sitting perpendicular to the road is another car that had spun out of control, the tire tracks were clearly visible.

For reasons I still question today I pulled Jackie’s Mini over and trotted up the emergency lane to try to see if, you know, someone was dying or something. The guy from the spun out car was standing by the road shaking uncontrollably. I asked if he was hurt and checked him for blood. He seemed okay so I put him back in his car at which point he started trying to start it. As I leaned in to tell him to just lean back and relax I smelled alcohol. I took the keys out of the ignition, told him to relax and stay here and I’d be back. I threw the keys in the back seat.

I stepped back out and looked at the two stopped cars now thirty feet away. A man was standing to right of the front car. I had just enough time to take that in when another car plowed full speed into the rear car slamming all three cars forward about 50ft. The guy who had been standing next to the van was now in the middle of traffic. Everything went crazy at that point. Cars started dodging the wreck and one car heading straight for it cut one lane to the right, directly into the path of a motorcycle which went down in a shower of sparks and slammed into the rear of Jackie’s car. The rider piled up against the driver side. The bike bounced off the bumper and slide past the ride and the car.

I sprinted over to the rider, an older guy in leather gear and he looked fucker. In the impact his helmet had come off. I don’t know if he had the strap on or not but looking at the helmet which had come to a rest next to him it looked like it had slammed the ground once with enough force to lathe of a portion the size of a plate for the helmet. The guy wasn’t moving and I kneed, held his hand and just started talking. I knew I couldn’t move him but I couldn’t tell if he was breathing or even had a pulse. There wasn’t any blood which was amazing consider his helmet was two feet from his head. Suddenly he started taking these irregular death breaths. I called to Jackie who was now on the phone to ask for an ambulance and to come over and watch this guy. I said if he stopped breathing, call me back over. Ultimately she never got through on 911.

I ran back to the crash that was now three cars and about 50 ft closer to where I we had stopped the car. At this point traffic and slowed dramatically, fortunately. All the gawkers guaranteed no one else would plow into the stopped cars. I ran over to each car and methodically looked for anyone inside. Everyone seemed to be out of their cars and no one was bleeding. The last car that I check, the one that had rear ended the first accident contained a woman who was crying and in pain. She had injured here back and was complaining of chest pains. I just held her had and kept her talking. When the cops arrived I told them about the motorcyclist and the woman’s pains. With the cops there I ran back to Jackie and the motorcyclist. He was now very semi conscious. He would try to move every now and then. There was a woman holding his head and I handed her my sweater to put under his head. I walked back to the cop who was with the lady to see about getting help the rider and she was interrogating this woman who is balling about what happened. “what lane were you in, what color was the car you hit, do you have someone who can pick you up” BS like that, I reminded the cop (Highway Patrol) of the unconscious guy and she seemed totally unconcerned, and told me help was on the way. I had thought help was there. WTF is the point of teaching cops and CPR or First Aid if they aren’t even going to bother looking at someone who is injured.

About ten minutes after the cops arrived, fire trucks and ambulances arrived. The firemen seemed almost excited about the whole thing. They took over for Jackie and the other woman and me and Jackie basically just started bawling. I mean I sort of lost my shit there for a second. The firemen just took a pair of scissors and starting at the guy’s neck cut every piece of clothing from his body right down to his boots. There was a little blood around his mouth and as they put him on the board he became a little combative, which as far as I’m concerned was a great sign.

A fireman came over and asked up if we were okay and we sort of told him what had happened, and his reply was, “Yeah, but you two are okay right?’ Which sank in pretty well. I asked how the rider was, and the fireman replied that he had serious injuries. I asked if he was going to make past that. And he said almost certainly, he’d be fine. Just then he noticed the guys helmet and grabbed it, “Hey his helmet, he’s going to want this”, and ran over to the ambulance. So true, so true.

All of this was pretty freaking weird but now comes the oddest part for me. A highway patrol motorcycle officer comes over and asks me what happened and I spear for the life of me I can’t recall crap. I was standing no more than 50 ft from where the second crash occurred and was starring right at it as it happened but I couldn’t recall what the color of any of the cars were. I couldn’t recall if the car had clipped the motorcycle or just cut him off. Nothing. I was basically useless. I had seen two cares in the road and one spun out then one, or maybe more cars slammed into the stopped cars. I don’t have any idea what happened to the car that had caused the motorcycle to go down, if he had stopped and was one of the cars pulled off to the side or if he had continued on. And it stunned me. It’s like trying to tell you arm to move and it just wouldn’t. I knew I had seen everything but the record button had just be left off. I can see the car and the sparks of motorcycle on the pavement but no color.

In any case shortly after that they let us go. Jackie’s bumper took a wallop and has a crack in it. Our hands and my hoodie had someone random guys blood on them.

And the best part? We still had to go get 250 Ghirardelli bars. When we got there we asked for a bathroom (“Outside”) which we couldn’t find so we washed off our hands in a heavily chlorinated fountain. We bought the bars, drove down to the caps, finished taking all the stickers off and went home to our beds.

So I’ve learned some lessons that day and some lessons I’d already know were illuminated more clearly.

1) If you need 800 of some item, get them all at one place.

2) If you get in an accident stay in the car, with your seat belt on. That guy standing next to the van is lucky to be alive. Keep you hazards on.

3) If you can get your car out of traffic do it. If you see someone whose car is stuck in traffic and it is safe to do so, get behind them and push their car with yours out of the way with you car. Also note if you have a flat or any other car malfunction your first priority is to get off the road. You can run on a flat for miles before it does any permanent damage. If you just threw your clutch you can’t do much more damage getting your car to the side of the road.

4) If you are driving watch the road. The car that slammed into the first accident never slowed, not at all. I’m not sure but I think it was the woman who injured her back. While I was waiting for here she asked for her phone which was at her feet. Her purse was in the back seat. I wonder if she was on, or looking at her phone. Maybe or maybe not but what ever the case she never saw those cars till she hit them, at least form my perspective.

5) Enjoy life while you live.