Prose and Kaa

I can find the most spectacular . . . ly stupid ways to hurt myself. Yeesh.

So, I go to lunch, today. About four miles down the Interstate from where I work. As I was leaving the parking lot of the restaurant on the way back from said lunch, I had to wait to turn out of the restaurant parking lot onto Peachtree road. It's very busy, and it's raining, so I realize I'm going to be there a while. Probably at least until the nearby traffic light changes to red.

I see something moving out of the corner of my eye.

Inside my window. The driver's side window.

I look. It's a spider. Not a tiny one, but a good-sized one. Body and legs together a bit less than the size of a dime. Basically about eight inches from my head.

My instinct on seeing a spider that close to me is FLEE RUN GET AWAY DANGER EXIT SAVE YOURSELF or something to that general effect.

Unfortunately, there are extenuating circumstances:

• I'm in a car


• I'm driving said car


• On a busy road


• Wearing a seat belt

So, what essentially ends up happening is that the left side of my body flinches away violently and attempts to be on the far side of the right side of my body. I immediately get a muscle pre-cramp (it doesn't cramp, but it eventually will because I've Moved Wrong™) in my left side (between two ribs—very painful) and I feel like something is very wrong down around my lower back. This takes about one microsecond. Meanwhile, traffic has died down and I could turn, but I can't turn, because if I take my eyes off the spider, it will jump on me, run into my clothing, bite me, and I'll die. (Call it an irrational fear all you want; doesn't make any less real to me.) It crawls up the window toward the top. I reach out to toggle the switch to cause the window to automatically open. Every nerve in my left arm is saying FLEE RUN GET AWAY DANGER EXIT SAVE YOURSELF.

Then I think, "If I open the window, the wind will blow it on me and I'll die. So I start hunting around the car—blindly, remember, because I can't take my eyes off it—for something I can use to keep the spider from getting on me.

Meanwhile, the light has changed red and there is no more traffic coming, but all I have eyes for is the damned spider on my damned window. I'm vaguely aware that someone is also behind me, waiting to get out of the parking lot, too.

I find a piece of paper and roll down the window about an inch. Rain spatters in. I use the paper to try to keep the spider stationary with respect to the window opening. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, it is raining and rain comes in . . . and the spider is not propelled outside the car through the open-by-one-inch window.

Of course not. Because that would be too easy. No, the spider falls inside the car. Past my left shoulder. Down to where I can't see it.

My entire left side tries once more to swap position with my right side, with about as much success.

The OH person SHIT behind SPIDER me ON toots ME their FLEE horn. I RUN turn GET pretty AWAY much DANGER blindly EXIT into SAVE traffic YOURSELF and SPIDER somehow—I ON don't ME remember ON how—work ME my ON way ME over ON ME to ON ME the ON ME left ON ME lane ON ME because ON ME I ON ME have ON ME to ON ME turn. I'm frantically looking for the spider because it's still in the car ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME and is out of sight and therefore on me. And probably looking for an opening—any opening—to get inside my clothing so it could bite me and make me die. I will defend my logic until my dying day. ON ME.

I'm very glad there were no cops on Peachtree because I was in my lane and the one next to me. I almost hit an orange road-construction barrel because I was too busy looking for the spider (that was on me) to notice things like oncoming traffic or inconvenient traffic laws.

Finally, the light changed green and I was able to begin turning from Peachtree onto the on-ramp for Buford Highway.

Which is when I noticed the spider, again. Crawling up the door from wherever it had fallen (Not on me! Yay!). I watched it while incidentally not wrecking my car trying to navigate traffic and merge.

It rested for a very long moment on the window toggle-thingy, meaning I could not roll down the window. Also, I could not touch the door. Because if I touched the door, it would jump on me, run into my clothing, bite me, and I'd die.

It then crawled up the door some more, and crawled into the recessed door handle. So if it didn't come out . . . well, I guess I'd have to just use the passenger door to get in and out of the car. Or maybe just sell the car. Or burn it. Those are the only logical solutions. Because once I got out of the car and lost sight of the spider, the entire car was its lair. And . . . well, I like the car, but flames kill spiders. It really is the most reasonable course of action.

Luckily, it finally tired of that spot and began crawling upwards again, toward the window. When it was almost to the glass, I quickly punched the toggle to lower the window all the way and then jerked my hand off the switch, lest it jump on me, crawl into my clothing, bite me, and cause my death.

Rain was coming in, getting the door and me at least a little wet.

I grabbed the same paper as before and used it to flick! the spider out the window. At the same moment (you'll notice here that since I'm using both hands to manipulate the paper and the window toggle that neither hand is on the wheel, right?) I punch the toggle and the window begins to roll up.

Yay! The spider is now on the outside! It can no longer jump on me, crawl into my clothing, bite me, and cause me to die.

Except . . . wait. It didn't fall off. It's clinging to the rubber seal. I'm only going 35 (and royally pissing off the people behind me who want to go 60 or 70 (speed limit is 55)) so I speed up to 55.

Spider still on rubber. 60. Spider still on rubber. (I can probably get out of the car at work using the passenger door, because now the entire driver's side of the car is unusable. Possibly forever.) 65. Spider—yes! Spider now clinging only with two legs while others flap in the wind.

And . . . success! Spider blows off. Somewhere between where Peachtree exits onto Buford and where Buford exits onto I-85N. Probably less than 2 miles.

The entire sequence of events I have described here took . . . maybe five minutes. Tops. I have no recollection of driving part of that distance because spider spider spider spider ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME.

I post this because I hope it gives people without phobias a little better understanding of how all-consuming the phobia can get.

My side aches from the pre-cramp, and at some point during the evening, it'll probably cramp for real and hurt like eight kinds of hell. I probably did pull a muscle in my lower left back because as I type this sitting in my office chair at work, my lower back is throbbing.

Yes, I could have used the paper to smash the spider. Why didn't I? Were you not paying attention? Because if I had done that, it would have crawled up the paper, gotten ON ME then into my clothes, bitten me, and I would have died. No amount of calm, rational thought trumps the fact of this. Sorry.

Why didn't I calmly pull the car over and take care of the situation? Were you not paying attention? To do anything "calmly" would have required rational thought. Which was pretty much not happening for several minutes.

This post has been brought to you by my arachnophobia. I hope you "enjoyed" it.

I also hope that you will understand when I never speak to you ever again if you even joke about putting a spider on me in real life. Not kidding.

I left my car with the body shop/Geico inspection center last Friday morning. As of today, one week later, I had not heard from them other than receiving the estimate ($1830+) a couple of days ago. So I called.

He said he was going to try very hard to get my car done by the end of today. Apparently, it was ready for painting, and that's all that was left to do.

Well, I haven't heard from them, yet, and it's now closing in on 4:30. They close at 6:00. If they don't call me before 5:00, there is no way it will be physically possible for me to make it there before they close for the week.

Have I mentioned that I hate this rental Toyota? Because I hate it. Hate. It. As in loathe. As in DIAF, loathsome Corolla! I said the other day that it was a Camry, but I erred. It is a Corolla. I can only guess that in Japanese, "Corolla" must mean "tiny, uncomfortable vehicle not meant for fat Americans." I probably shortened "Corolla" to "Camry" because "Camry" is a smaller word, and this Corolla is tiny, cramped, and uncomfortable.

The Cobalt was a better car. Yeah, that's right. I said it. So there.

I have actual aches and pains associated with having to enter, exit, and drive this sardine can of a car. And what's more, I left my garage door opener in my Element, so I have to get out of the car and manually raise and lower the garage door, which blows goats.

You may have already guessed from the userpic of this entry that something else has happened to my car. You'd be right. I'm okay and the car is driveable. :)

As I was leaving work tonight to get to the Fiction Workshop, someone rear-ended me. Her Subaru Outback was barely damaged. The rear bumper and lower half of the hatch-back (rear door?) of my Honda Element are going to have to be replaced. The car is drivable, I'm fine, she was fine, but the floor of my car was littered with the contents of my dashboard and the trays connected to it. I remember feeling an odd "pattering" sensation on my legs and I thought glass had broken, but it was the coins in my change tray flying off and scattering all over the place. An odd feeling.

She was super nice about it, as was I. Nothing we could do but deal with it, after all. Shit happens. She gave me her information (name, email, phone numbers, license plate), I gave her mine. We drove off.

She works at the CDC, a few buildings over from the building I work, in the same "industrial park."

It took me...20 minutes, tops, to get to the book store where my workshop meets. By the time I got there, cranked up my Macbook, connected to the Internet, and checked email and Geico, she had already called her insurance company (Geico, just like me), given them her information and mine, and I got calls from Geico and from her, neither of which I could answer because I was learning about Sex and Violence in Fiction. :) The claim was already open and waiting for my perusal.

So if I have to get rear-ended, I guess she's the ideal person to have hit me. I wasn't the least bit angry because I've done the same thing she did, although I didn't damage the car of the guy I hit nearly as much as she damaged mine. If I had to guess what happened (she said she just plain didn't see me, and asked if I'd pulled in off the interstate), she was right behind me and saw me pull ahead, and immediately started looking for her own opening to merge into traffic, and didn't notice that I had stopped because the opening I saw was taken by someone else. So she saw an opening and punched the gas...and hit me because I was about 30 feet farther ahead than she was.

So, really, nothing I don't understand from her POV.

So...soon, I'll be taking my car back to the shop to be worked on. Again. And driving a rental car for a day or two. Again. Whee.

 Mortality by Jad Abumrad & Robert Krulwich from WNYC's Radiolab (Rating: 0)

This morning I got up at the ass-crack of dawn (6:00) and was ready to leave my house by 7:30 for the drive to Anniston, Alabama, to pick up my car from the Ford Dealership¹, where it has been held hostage for 26 days.

I arrived at 8:30 and the dealership wasn't open, but on the off chance that someone was there, I tried the door. There was one guy inside. I asked him if my contact was there and he said "not yet," but when I mentioned why I was there, he said he had my paperwork, key, and the check from Geico for me to endorse.

I did all that, then went out to transfer all my crap from the rental car to my own car, then drove the rental back to Enterprise. They brought me back to the Ford dealership and, for the first time in 26 days, I was once again behind the wheel of my own car.

I cranked it and pulled out onto the road, headed back toward the Interstate. And noticed that the gas was so low, it was quivering below the "E."

That was when I also noticed that the "Check Engine" light was on. I turned on the radio to plug in my iPod so I could listen to some podcasts...and the radio demanded that I enter my code.

I won't share what I actually said. There might be tender readers. I did, however, suggest that the body shop guys were involved in incestuous—nay, Œdipal—relationships; that the entirety of their cranial tissue consisted solely of fecal matter; and that their collective parents were never married. I may also have let slip that I wished for them to consume fecal matter immediately prior to termination of their lives. And after said termination of life processes, I may have expressed a strong desire for these same people to be condemned for eternity to experience extreme thermal discomfort.

Afterward, I turned around and, instead of going back to the Ford dealership—the body shop is closed on weekends—I went to the Honda dealership.

The guy who helped me there immediately knew how to fix the radio, which he did, while rolling his eyes that the guys at the body shop just left it that way and let me drive it off the lot.²

"We'll have to get a mechanic to hook it up to the computer to see what's wrong with the engine, though."

So I went into the waiting room and sat down.

Approximately 45 minutes later, they called me out to the car.

The mechanic showed me something he said was the throttle...something (I didn't write it down; I'm sorry to be completely non-mechanical). At any rate, it had a tiny little piece of the corner missing, probably—according to the mechanic—because when I hit the dog, it drove the fan blades back and one of them clipped the corner of this...thing. He said it's very sensitive, and chances are it's not actually damaged, but on the other hand, it might signal the car that the throttle is wide open when I'm actually stopped and am trying to put the car into park, and it won't let me.

He recommended that I get Geico to pay for that part to be replaced, as well. And of course it can't just be replaced. The entire part of the engine it's located in has to be removed...

...to the tune of some $350 more dollars. He assured me that I could safely drive the car at least for a few days, and to ignore the light, because it would probably go on and off sporadically.³

He was right. It has been both on and off at various times during the rest of the day.

Also somewhat obnoxiously, they managed to drive my car down to where there was only .7 gallons of gas left in the tank. I know they had to drive it to test it, but couldn't they have put a gallon of gas in it? Yeesh. I had to put 14.3 gallons in a 15-gallon tank. It's a wonder I made it to a service station (not BP, not Exxon).^{4, 5}

Now, the total cost of me hitting a dog at Interstate speeds (I checked—the speed limit at the spot where it happened is 70 mph, so I was going within 2 mph of 70 when I hit the dog) on said Interstate is:

My Deductible: $500
Geico Paid: $3237
Rental Car: $843
Throttle...thingy: $350

Total: $4930

I called Geico and they told me how to go about getting the last $350 taken care of, so I guess I'll pursue that next week.

Oy. Just shy of $5000. For hitting a dog.

Stupid dog.

---

1. Sunny King Honda is where I originally took it, but Sunny King is apparently the only car dealership in town: Sunny King Honda, SK Ford, SK Kia/Scion, etc. But they share a single body shop, which is located at Sunny King Ford. Hence it's not entirely weird that a Ford dealership had my Honda.
2. The manager of the service center at Sunny King Honda all but called the manager of the body shop at home to...express his disdain. I have a feeling that he will get an earful about allowing a customer to drive away a car with the Check Engine light lit and the radio disabled.
3. In Sunny King Honda/Ford/Kia/Scion/Etc.'s defense: It's entirely possible they did not know about the throttle...thingy. As I said, the damage is small, and unless you're looking for it—and why would you, unless the engine light came on and you hooked it up and the computer told you it was message P1121 (Throttle Position Lower than Expected)?—it's hard to spot. And since the light was only on some of the time, again, it's entirely possible that it never came on when they had the car started.
4. When I left the car, it had just over 300 miles on the tank. When I picked it up, it had 343.
5. I have not bought so much as a stick of gum from Exxon since the oil spill in Alaska years ago. BP has now been added to that list.

[Note: This is a copy of an update I posted on Facebook just a little bit ago. You'll understand once you read it why I just didn't want to have to retype anything. I apologize if you see it twice.]

Picture it: Labor Day weekend, 2001. I'm driving home to Atlanta from a visit to my mother and friends in Alabama. At around 10:30 PM I get to about the first Oxford exit (185) on I-20 east and some dipshit in a large, gleaming new white truck pulls out of an on-ramp in front of a BMW, which swerves into me. I end up hitting one of those yellow striped signs and sliding along a few feet of one of those concrete barriers on the side of overpasses/bridges. I'm okay, but my Jeep was severely damaged. It never ran right again. The other two cars--the guy who caused the entire incident and the guy whose overreaction led to my involvement had minor scratches and drove off as soon as the cops were done. I "got" to stay in lovely Oxford, Alabama overnight and pay $700 for a local garage to get my car running again the next day.

Flash forward to today, April 11, 2010, just east of Talladega Raceway in Alabama (about 15 miles from Oxford, Alabama). I'm going the exact speed limit, in the left lane, passing some dipshit who's doing about 65 in a 70mph zone.

Suddenly, in front of me is a large, shaggy white dog. Crossing the Interstate very slowly from right to left. I swerve, but it's either hit the dog or hit the guy I'm passing. I choose the dog.

This dog was truly massive. When I hit it going close to 70, it caused me to lose control of the car. I tried to right it twice, but at this point, that ain't happening. I finally ended up flying off the road into the median ditch.

I hit the downslope pretty much airborne, and the upslope slowed me down. I oscillated back and forth a time or two and eventually ended up stopped about 3/4 up the right bank of the median ditch, my car in "drive" but not moving. Smoke was coming out from under the hood and everything that had been on the front seat was now in the floorboard, including under my legs.

I put the car in "park" and cleared the seat enough to allow me to get out of the car to assess the damage. Unfortunately, it was too dark by this point to allow me to see much of anything, but I knew that staying in the median ditch wasn't an option.

I carefully pulled up to the top of the slope and noticed four things:

1. My gas gauge was now reading "Empty."

2. My thermostat was quivering on "H."

3. My oil light was on.

4. When I put the car in "drive," the "D" was blinking.

I don't believe any of those singly are a great sign, but all of them together sound...bad.

I put my hazards on, pulled out into a lull, and made my way to the right shoulder about a half-mile further down the road where I felt safe enough to pull over.

AAA took about 90 minutes to arrive, and he towed me to Oxford, Alabama, to the nearest garage. When he deposited the car in the parking lot of the garage, we noticed that...quite a bit of fluid had leaked out of my car during the few minutes it took for him to tow me.

The place opens at 8 AM. I left my keys in the overnight drop-box and cleaned everything of any immediate value out of it. The driver then dropped me at the Hampton Inn, where I'm.

So. Oxford. No offense, and all, but...I hope never to stay here again.