Bang...boom

Did you ever have one of those days?

I had one last Thursday, and let me start by telling you that (after some of the things I've ben through) if I make it safely into my bed at night, no matter what else might have happened since the alarm went off, as far as I'm concerned I had a good day.

Some are definitely better than others, though. Just take my Thursday. Things were pretty much on the plus side of the ledger until I was returning to work after lunch.

I was driving one of my company's cars and as I approached the (red, at the time) light at US 31 and Old Meridian I was coasting to a stop with my foot on the brake when I decided to organize the papers that were strewn about the empty passenger seat. I took my eye off the road just long enough to tap the car ahead of me which already was stopped.

The elderly woman got out and without exchanging any words, or even glancing at me got out a white glove and performed an inspection on her rear bumper that would have made a drill sergeant at barracks inspection time proud.

After ascertaining that her newer model Impala had sustained no damage and securing my name and phone number, said woman got back in and, much to my relief, drove off. Seeing as how she had my name, I thought it was in my best interest to report this (non) accident to the transportation director.

Feeling no pity for me he quoted book, chapter, and verse from the policy manual the section which states that such occurences require a follow up urine drug screen and breathalyzer test.

I complied. After completing the above, I decided that any more work would be pressing my luck, so I headed for home.

I work in Carmel and live in Kokomo. The facility where I had to leave my expelled air and two ounces of pee was located on the upper east side of Indy, so I decided to take a shortcut home through Noblesville.

I would have a hard time verifying this I'm sure, but the next 15 minutes might have put me in the record books. No sooner had I left the scene of my post accident test than I approached a construction site in downtown N'ville.

I saw orange barrels...I saw workers...I saw a metal plate that is used to cover construction holes in the road...

What I didn't see was that only half of the construction hole was actually covered. By the time the front end of my car had come to rest suspended in the air, held up by my front bumper resting on the edge of the metal plate and both the driver's and the passenger's air bags having deployed, I realized that I was quite possibly the first person in history to take a pre-accident drug screen/breatalyzer.

Nothing else bad happened, and in fact I might just come out a little bit ahead, given the fact that the police report concluded that there were no warnings or barriers around the open pit. I will be having some conversations with somebody about liability.

But most of all, it just goes to show what I said before...if you set your standard low enough, like me, every day that you make it to bed alive and kicking, is really just another good day.

Nothing To Do