8/18/03
Ryan listened to my story about the flying baby carriage that almost hit my car.
Yesterday I was forced by summer road construction to take a convoluted route home. I was idling at a four-way stop when a mini-van turned in front of me and blasted it's way up a very steep hill.
The rear hatch of the van flew up and a baby carriage shot out of the back of the vehicle and bounced around in the intersection. A Bugs Bunny baby rattle also made it's way into my field of view and sort of chased after the carriage. The rattle landed right next to its big buddy.
I honked my horn repeatedly trying to get the mini-van to stop. When it looked as if the driver of the van didn't notice she was spewing infant accessories all over the roadway I decided to take action.
I got out of my car and walked toward the baby stroller. When I got to it I noticed that the van with the non-latching hatch was turning around to retrieve its jettisoned cargo. I thought, "I should just leave this thing here and let Ms. Careless Van Lady clean up her own mess." Then I thought to myself, "I'm out of the car standing in the middle of the street. I'd better do something otherwise I'm confirmed a prick and a dumbass." So I pick up the carriage (it was heavy and looked no worse for wear after the tumble it took) and walked it out of intersection. I didn't forget the rattle.
I was going to leave the thing propped up against a tree rather then help Ms. Careless Van Lady load it back into her car. I decided to hang around and help.
I think I'm glad I did because Ms. Careless Van Lady had paddles instead of arms.
She looked a lot like a Thalidomide baby.
How she drove her van I'm not sure, but she obviously was extremely capable of maneuvering it at great speeds. I'm certain she would have had no problem at all taking care of the stroller. It's ignorantly narrow-minded to think otherwise. However I felt better about the fact that I was already in the process of loading the runaway stroller into her van prior to noticing the fact that she was sporting paddles.
I caught a glimpse of a kid, facing backward in his/her car seat as I shut the hatch for Ms. Careless Van Paddle Hand Lady. This kid had a very wide-eyed look on his/her face. The child had witnessed the van's hatch flying open and the stroller flying out along with what was probably his/her Bugs Bunny rattle. The kid was more than likely convinced that he/she was the next thing to go out the back of the van.
Before she drove away I said, "You should be more careful. People with paddle hands really shouldn't drive so fast. Where's the fire? You obviously don't have a job or anything to get to."
Okay I didn't say that. I'm just tying to make my wife mad.