Car Wreck

Freshman year was the year of bike wrecks, I had three pretty major wrecks that year. One has already been outlined in an earlier post. The other one was a typical flip over the handle bars. But the last wreck was pretty terrific, terrifying and tremendous.

I volunteer at a non-denominational youth group called K-Life. The K-Life house happens to be 10.2 miles away from campus. Not having a car I had to get there either by riding my bike or taking public transportation. Travel time was one hour with public transportation or significantly less if I rode my bike.

One gray, rainy day in April I walked outside to survey the weather before heading off to K-Life. The day was gray and overcast, but it hadn't rained all day and the clouds in the sky didn't appear to be any more ominous than they had been all day long. I decided that the rain would hold off so I hoped on my bike and began the ride to club.

I was about ten minutes away from my destination when it began to rain. I had already been riding for thirty minutes and since my math skills are so good I know that 10 min <<>

I was one block away from my destination and I had just one street left to cross. I was waiting patiently at the light for my turn to cross the intersection. The light turned to green and I began across the intersection. As I was in the middle the light turned straight to red. There was nothing to do but keep going.

As I got into the lanes of oncoming traffic I took a look over my right shoulder to see a car barreling toward me. I had just enough time to think, "This is gonna hurt." before BAM! I was hit.

The next thing I know I am lying in the middle of the road separated from my bike by 20 ft. I look over my shoulder again and again see cars rushing toward me. I knew that if I didn't get up and out of the road I would be run over as well as run into.

I quickly hopped up, grabbed my bike and ran out of the middle of the road. A tow truck had seen the accident and quickly pulled out into the middle of the intersection to prevent any more cars from going through, thus allowing me to pick up some of the extraneous pieces of my bike lying around.

The old lady who hit me pulled over and we waited for a police man. She was quite shaken up and I felt bad for her. So I told her that everything was ok. She wasn't convinced seeing as how there was blood all over my legs. The lacerations weren't actually that bad, the blood was just going everywhere because of the rain.

Finally a police officer showed up. He decided that it wasn't an accident (I don't know what it would be called then), and that I didn't need to go to the hospital because I was still standing so I obviously didn't break anything. The fist sized knot now protruding from my shin didn't mean a thing.

I called the people at K-Life and one of them came to my rescue. After club that night I was unable to stand my legs were in so much pain. It was at this point in time that I thought a visit to the hospital might be warranted.

When I checked into the ER I informed the receptionist that I had been hit by a car a few hours before. She told me to sit in the waiting room and I would be seen as soon as possible. I waited for five hours. And then the doctor didn't even bother to take an X-ray. I was told that I was fine and that I should just try to sleep it off.

That has been my last big bike accident for several years, and hopefully it will stay that way. The riding is lots more fun without the crashing.

Rule #2

Last night my friends Fiona, Liat, Caitlin, Katie and I made a spontaneous decision to go to an improv comedy club, Comedy Sportz. Fiona and I had previously been to a Comedy Sportz in Chicago and were quite excited to learn that there is also on in Houston.

During the show actors ask for request from the audience and then are required to play a game or create a scene on the spot involving the suggestions of the audience. Coming up with ridiculous suggestions and being loud have both been fortes of mine for quite some time so it wasn’t long before my presence was known inside the theater.

One of the games played involved audience participation. And being one of the more enthusiastic members there I was, somewhat reluctantly, chosen. The game that I played was chain reaction. Categories were suggested by audience members and the different teams then had to name objects in that category with the last letter of one being the first letter of the next. (Cars: Hyundai–> Intrepid–> Dodge–> Envoy etc.)

The last game of the evening involved three of the actors creating characters and while remaining in character giving advice to audience members on anything really. One audience member wanted to know about anagrams. The “ref” (emcee) for the evening began to ask what exactly an anagram was.

His first gander was “one of those words that reads the same forwards and backwards”.

I quickly offered a “No, that is a palindrome”.

Next an audience member said, ” words that sound the same like to, and two”.

Fiona and I responded , “NO, that is a homonym.”

The ref then turned to me and said, “Well, what is it then, Caroline?“

“An anagram is when you take the letters of one word and rearrange them to for other words.”

“OK, fine. And what is your question about anagrams that you would like our friends to answer?”

“How many words can you make out of the letters in “planets”?”

(Previously in the evening this had actually been our topic of conversation. The word planets has all of the most common letters and thus lends itself to being very good at this game. In “Te Da Vinci Code” it is mentioned that 92 words can be made using only these letters.)

The characters then began to answer the question according to the persona of each. One of the characters lived his life by two rules and thus answered every question with two rules. As an answer to my question he said “Rule number one: It doesn’t matter*. Rule number two: Date Caroline. She’s going places.”

Don't forget Rule #2

Don’t forget it either.

*I don’t actually remember what rule number one was. But it obviously isn’t as important as rule #2.

I was distracted

So, this whole "let's write stories down for posterity/amusement of others/fake online community I like to pretend exists" has kind of failed. In my defense though, I was updating blogs regularly this entire time. I was in Germany from Feb. to Aug. 2009. During that time I kept lovely blog of my adventures. Then when I returned to school one of my assignments for class was to write a daily blog about what I was reading. That one no longer exists since it was set up through the school otherwise I would give you the link to prove that I was doing something. Not that anyone actually cares, not that anyone actually read this. I know you are thinking by now, "I thought this was going to be a blog of stories. Where is the story?" Here it comes.

....

When I graduated high-school I requested that everyone get me money as a gift. I wanted cold-hard cash. No new towels, dorm room organizers, or other cutsie things. I wasn't trying to be greedy, I had a plan for all that dough. I wanted to buy a bike. When I got to campus the first thing that my parents and I did was hit up a local bike shop.

After some thinking I decided that a mountain bike would best suit my purposes. You sit up straighter on them, they go off curbs way better, and if I crashed they tend to be a little bit sturdier. I walked away with a men's large, black, Specialized Hardrock. I named him Stealth.

I rode Stealth every single day. He was my only form of transportation, but I didn't let that slow me down. I used him to get to class, the grocery store, downtown. Stealth and I went everywhere together.

Fast forward to the end of the semester. My friend, Kate, wanted to go to the Central West End for an art gallery opening. We decided that we were going to ride our bikes to the metro station, take the metro to the Central West End and then ride to the gallery. After going to the opening we were going to meet some of our other friends at the ice skating rink in Forest Park.

When we got to the metro station we were greeted by signs informing us that the metro was unable to run because the tracks had iced over in the recent storm. Kate and I were pretty bummed out when we heard this. But then we thought to ourselves, "We have mountain bikes, snowy terrain is no match for our supper studded tires. And besides, the roads were clear so we wouldn't have to deal with that much snow."

We took off down the sidewalk of Forest Park Parkway heading for Forest Park. Riding on the sidewalk through the snow and ice it took us 15 minutes to go a grand distance of half a mile. That should have been our second big clue to turn around and go back to the comfort of our nice heated dorm. But, as my mother tends to remind me, freshmen's brains are still underdeveloped and immature and this leads to poor decision making. So we kept trekking.

We finally reached the entrance to the park and were able to ride on the road without having to worry about the very heavy traffic on some of the other roads. Inside the park, the snowplows had done a fantastic job clearing the snow and ice and putting down salt. We buzzed along to the other side of the park. We reached a bike path that we knew would take us closer to our destination than the road we were following would. We hesitated for a moment knowing that we would lose the smooth sailing that the plowed, salted road had provided for us. Upon quick visual inspection the bike path didn't look too treacherous though. There was hardly any snow on it at all. We took off into the darkness.

We were flying along the path and weren't more than 30 yard in when suddenly my bike flew out from underneath me. I had hit a patch of black ice and my bike went wildly out of control. I crashed to the ground so hard and fast that I didn't have time to put my hands down.

I opened my eyes, dazed, confused and really cold. It took me a moment to realize that I when I had crashed I had broken through the ice into a puddle of water several inches deep. I got out as quickly as I could and started shaking mostly from the frigid temperatures but also probably from the immense amount of adrenaline coursing through my veins.

Kate is an EMT and knew that we needed to get me someplace to warm up and dry off, and we needed to get there fast. We dismounted from our bikes and made a beeline for the nearest exit and and the St. Louis Bread Co. that we knew was in the area.

I headed straight for the dryers in the bathroom while Kate attempted to contact the people we were supposed to be meeting for ice skating. Kate entered into the bathroom with a concerned look on her face a couple of minutes later. She had just been on the phone with our friends and they had divulged that they were on foot, at night, in Forest Park and that there was a truck of men who had been drinking following them.

I told Kate that we had to get to them fast because they had absolutely no common sense, I know I obviously don't either since I went biking in these conditions, but I have more than they do. We grabbed our bikes and headed into the park and to try and locate our friends. The search was a long one. Our targets didn't know the name of the street they were on and we were coming at them from an opposite direction, but after many descriptions of trees and cracks in the road we finally found them. Kate and I stayed on our bikes and assumed the position behind the girls walking and followed them to the ice skating rink.

When we arrived there was a police car waiting. The girls had called 911 while being followed. A few seconds later the red truck pulled in and the men were arrested for drinking and driving and possession of a weapon.

After seeing my friends safely at the rink I headed for home. It was a long slow ride with me being bruised and cold but I made it. When I finally entered my dorm, my clothes and hair were frozen solid, I didn't have feeling in my fingers and toes, and my teeth were chattering. I don't believe that a warm shower has ever been quite that wonderful and painful at the same time.