Tuesday, July 31, 2012

death and all his angels

Describe 3 legitimate fears you have and how they became fears.

1) After Saturday, and having a car blow up in my damn face, I can definitely say that I fear dying. Not because it might hurt or I'm scared of the afterlife. . But of leaving Willow alone in this world. Of leaving JP to be a single dad. That terrifies me.

    So, now I have to tell you all the story, because it's crazy, and every few minutes I have to keep reminding myself that I didn't make it up. Saturday, I was at work, I was just getting ready to make a safe drop because I had been putting it off for hours and I had way too much money in my register. So, there's no one in the store, no one is fueling outside, it's quiet. I count money, get ready to enter it into the computer and I hear the worst sound I have ever heard in my life. It was really, really loud. I know that this was partially because of the intercom being on, but damn, it was loud. So, naturally, I looked outside! That's when I see a car on it's hood sliding straight at me. There were sparks and smoke coming off of it and it was coming STRAIGHT FOR MY FACE. I'm not even lying. Straight for my fucking face. Really, really, really fast. So, I run the opposite direction, thinking I could make it behind the counter or best case scenario to the kitchen or the back room and maybe, maybe escape with my life. I look back for some stupid reason and see the car airborne. I know I was yelling something about cars blowing up. . . So honestly, at this point, I literally had no clue what was going on. It was like time was standing still and I was stuck in this bubble, with tons of money in my hand and I didn't know where to run or what to do or say and I thought I was going to die. I thought of Willow. That was the only tangible thought I remember having. Finally, my coworkers came out of the kitchen and one of them, thank god, had her head about her to yell instructions. So, I shut off the gas, called 911 (they already knew about it, some cop had seen it happening) and ran out there. There was a man holding his elbow sitting right in front of the store door. Right next to him was a detached car door. I thought it was the man from the car and he had somehow, miraculously, gotten thrown from the car. It turns out he had gotten hit in the face with the car door but was fine.

So, this is how I have pieced the events together based on what I remember and what emergency personnel told me.

The guy, Michael Basso, 55 years old, from Woodridge, gets off 55 and turns right towards town. Sometime after that and before he gets to Dempsey's car lot (about 1/8th of a mile from the exit) he dies of something that I'm assuming causes his foot to clamp down on the gas, because of how fast he was going. He goes off the road, through the grass, hits one of the ramps that a show car was on, and goes airborne. He then crosses a road, comes through the Casey's parking lot and straight for the window that I was looking out of. Somehow, he bounces off the sidewalk, and then it's a little muddled. He hit that guy with his car door, crashed into the front of an SUV parked at one of the pumps and ended up with his car wrapped around the van of the guy who was hit in the face. In the meantime, he also managed to wrap one of our signs around it's pole, break an intercom and hit the bottom of the gas pump at a completely different pump. The signs and intercom are about 10 feet up.

Between running around putting "out of order" signs on all the pumps and selling cigarettes to some douchebag who decided he couldn't wait or go to another store, I finally realize that the guy sitting in front of the store is not the driver.

Lots of time elapses where we're cleaning the store because the super big kahuna lady shows up and freaking out because this kind of shit only happens in movies, and over 3 hours later they get the body out from under the car.

I finally went home an hour and a half after I was supposed to go home. I had to get a ride from someone because my car was blocked by firetrucks and we walked a very, very crabby Willow home. She hadn't eaten in 8-9 hours (she still won't take a bottle) and it was way past her bedtime.

Now that it's all over, I'm unsure of what to feel. People keep asking me if I'm ok, and I am, but I don't know how I'm supposed to react. I keep thinking I made it up, but the pictures are real.


2) I'm afraid of paranormal stuff. Ghosts, zombies, demons, even a good conspiracy theory will get me freaked out. At the same time, I love that stuff. But too much or at the wrong time and I'm in the corner crying,. Just ask JP. There may have been a time during my pregnancy that I cried like a little girl and didn't let him out of my sight because I read a description of a book about a guy who thinks zombies are real.

3) I'm scared I'm never going to amount to anything. I have so many dreams and so much I know I can do, but I'm terrified that either I won't have the money to do them (like going to school) or that my demons will keep fucking with me until I give up one way or another.

There you have it. Long time writing, but when I finally did, it was some good shit.

<3