He swiped the front of a van that was coming through the east-bound street before losing control of the truck and taking out the first three cars parked on both sides of my street. We were second from the corner on the left.
Thankfully, no one was hurt. The driver was tanked, so he probably wasn't hurt bad. Physically. He was thirty or so years old and from Western Pennsylvania. Jake calls him "the drunk guy from Pittsburgh".
Our car didn't look so bad. The trunk wouldn't close, the rear quarter panel was banged in, the rear passenger side door. Those were the obvious spots. The car that took the worst of it was behind ours, and rearended us pretty good. There were some problems in our front, I'm guessing from the impact.
But everyone was okay.
Even though Jake and Dave didn't get to go out for Wednesday Night Guys' Night to see Dolphin Tale. Because nothing says Guys' Night like Disabled Dolphins.
And I couldn't go to practice that night and then had to get up on stage last Saturday after having been out of the improv loop for almost a month. How that happened I have no idea.
Long story short, there was $7500 worth of damage to our car and they didn't total it. Yeah, um. It's a Hyundai Elantra. It's four years old. Who knew it was even worth $7500? That's about $4.25 more than we paid for it. If there was a venti latte in the cup holder it would have been worth the same as we paid for it. Close to it, at least. The insurance guy said expect to have the rental car for awhile.
"Awhile like two weeks?"
"ha ha ha ha ((silly girly, no!)). More like two or three months. We hope to get you guys back in your car by Christmas."
We got a Prius. Which is cool. I guess. We should at least save on gas money. I filled it up on September 30th and there's still a half a tank left after putting at least 200 miles on it since then. We drive a lot. Dave drives a lot. For work. Sometimes I go to Target or Shoprite on a Saturday and I'll take the car. I guess I log about eight or ten miles a month behind the wheel.
***
A couple days later, after game one of Phillies/Cardinals (or was it the next day? My time-space continuum is a bit off) we were in the house and heard glass break. Loudly. Crashing. It didn't sound like auto glass and I thought maybe it was the front window of the house where no one lives anymore because the old lady got carted off to a home a month or so ago. Dave ran out and saw the kids who did it. Drunk kids. Laughing and running down the street until they jumped in their car and sped off. In their car with out of state plates.
It wasn't the old lady's house, it was our next door neighbors' basement windows.
Our next door neighbors are the best neighbors you can ask for. They are Vietnamese immigrants who own an Asian supermarket up on Washington Avenue. The big kind where you can buy six foot tall sugarcane stalks and 50lb bags of rice and fishheads for a dime and all sorts of things you've never seen before unless, of course, you've seen them before. They love Jacob and he loves them and they give him things he loves like those Hershey Treasures and we give them things they aren't familiar with like oatmeal cookies and rosemary.
Cây mê điệt. Rosemary.
Bột yến mạch. Oatmeal
Cookie. Cookie.
The wife is so friendly but not so good with English. The husband's English is much better, and we talk a lot about things he isn't sure of. Things like "is _____ happening to me because I'm a Vietnamese immigrant, or is this happening to me because I'm an American now?". Things like census information gathering and income tax reviews and ultra-conservative anti-immigration door-to-door political campaigning and Lower! Your! Electricity! Bill! canvassing. Stuff that seems very intrusive and confusing to all of us, let alone to someone who doesn't really speak the language and wonders why the government needs so much information when all papers and taxes and such are in impeccable order.I saw him yesterday and said I was very sorry this happened to him. I noticed the day before that he put a new American flag in his window. There is always an American flag in his window, but the last one was getting a bit faded. He told me he was scared, and I told him that Dave saw the people who did it.
"Were they angry?"
"No, drunk"
"Were they Asian?"
"No, white"
"Do they live near here? Did you know them?
"No, they got in a car with Jersey plates. They were probably at the bar watching the Phillies game"
"Why? Why would they be at that bar? Why would they do this? Why my house?"
"I don't know. I'm sorry."
I was sorry. Am sorry. I don't know why they were at the bar. That bar is no place for anyone but old men and coke dealers and their customers. It's a terrible place. I don't know why they did this. Why his house. Why any of it. I am so sorry that he and his wife are so scared. Feel so targeted. Hated. Different.
Jacob was scared too.
He felt overwhelmed. "First the car, and now this?"
Confused. "Why do people from other places come here, get drunk, and do bad things?"
Superstitious. "What does 'bad things happen in threes' mean? I heard that on iCarly. Does that mean another bad thing will happen here?"
Being five is hard.
Being thirty five is hard too.
But everyone is okay.
***
People come here and do bad things. I know that's true in most cities, that a good chunk of the crime is committed by out-of towners. As if you can drive in and once you cross the city borders it's lawless and anything goes and no one will notice if you break something or take something.
Be bad in your own hometown. Leave mine alone. We have plenty of problems already.
It's especially bad on days the sports teams are playing. It makes me want the Phillies to lose Game 5 so all this can be over. When the Phillies won the World Series all hell broke loose. The news was careful to report that the arrests for the worst of it were made up of people from out of town. Not that you need a police report to tell you that. It's mostly kids from suburban high schools, and they love to wear their Letter Jackets. One look into the helicopter aerial views of the masses and security cam stills and you can see who is causing the trouble.
It makes me want the Eagles to suck it. The Sixers to, um, is it basketball season? Yes. No. I'm not sure. I am basketbally challenged. Sixers fans don't tend to cause a ruckus. As you were, Sixers. Flyers, please crap out sometime during your 80 month long season.
***
I saw a homeless man peeing right in front of Southern's (High School) front doors this morning. While the kids were going in.
He had an enormous wiener. And not just for a white guy either.
I'm betting he could have capitalized on that thing a few years ago and maybe done a little bit better for himself. Now it, and him, is sorta covered in grime and MRSA.
***
I really like the soundtrack to Boogie Nights.
20 degrees {comments}:
Why is it the out of towners? Some kids from Pittsburgh broke a window to the gov't van this summer while at the university. Really? A gov't vehicle? I mean really, if you're going to vandalize a vehicle, at least make sure it doesn't belong to the gov't, ya know? Dumb kids.
I wonder who put those drunk out-of-town kids up to it? -- I mean, how would they know to pick out HIS house from all the others around? Somebody had to point them there. THAT'S your villain. It's somebody local, who is too cowardly to do his own dirty work.
Ew, MRSA.
Damn, the whole street is bad luck afflicted right now! Maybe it was just the street's turn and now you all can go basck to being normal.
""Why do people from other places come here, get drunk, and do bad things?"
I heard somewhere, once, that they've been trained not to $#!+ in their own nest.
Seriously, if we think this through, these animals haven't realized there are consequences [for someone] for their actions. Since they don't have any interaction with the victim, they have no compassion. They only see an object, in this case a window, not a person.
You can be grateful for one thing - the hoodlums aren't locals and aren't likely to return and do more damage; they're not sending a message.
Dang, you just made me massively homesick. Really.
That sucks. At least everyone is okay.
I am so glad you all are ok. Physically, ok. Emotionally, well, not so ok. It is beyond frustrating when people do WRONG, period.
My husband loves sports and I constantly ask, "What is it with fans and their obsessions?" He answers very logically, " I don't know, you just can't explain it." Yeah, that cleared it up for me.
Here is hoping for no NUMBER THREE!
Maybe he had that kind of job and needlessly spent all the money in bars on Coke.
Now I want to roller skate.
And I live is Wisconsin and all are sports teams are on a roll winning and such.
Wisconsinites are really civil when it comes to sports. they are all like "Oh maybe next year." "They played hard" "Good Job guys."
The Packers are actually a community owned team and I think it really sets a tone for the state. There is personal pride in the team and that helps keep the civility.
As the ole saying goes 'bleep happens' and it doesn't have to mean one thing or another. Hell, I live in "the burbs" - the "nice" burbs of the area at that (supposedly) and we have stuff like that happen here all the time, including breaks ins & vandalism. And when it comes to that three's thing, or anything like it, "Curses only have power if you believe in them, and I don't." (Where that's from right now, I can't recall, a movie I think). I'm glad Everyone is okay and hope you can all feel settled again soon. (And that's some royal bs about your car! By Christmas?! Our suv only needed $5,600 worth of work after my husband got hit and they totaled it!)
Glad you guys are all ok. And SOB and I agree that most people from Pittsburgh are dicks.
I think there won't be a basketball season this year. Something about they couldn't agree. Go figure.
Here I thought people up in your part of the US were the gangsters and bad stuff. Maybe, the evil teenagers from out of state go driving all over the US doing stupid stuff and have 48 sets of liscense plates. Well, they could have 49 if they drove really really fast to get to Alsaska to commit stupid crimes.
We need to get spell check for the comment box or I need to get some sleep.
Glad you are all ok and I truly am sorry about your car and your neighbor's windows. Soon it will be too cold for them to break windows just for the heck of it.
Oh yes, ewww about the MRSA
GA-ROSSE! MRSA Penis. You are one hilarious cheeka. We once lived on a street that curved just enough to make people think they were Mario Andretti. (Is he still around?) We were at the apex of the curve and had every car we ever owned hit by a drunk driver. Very exciting.
I blame frat boys.
i am sorry buster! the city attracts the very good and the very bad.
Its always the out of towners.
Living deep in my city, I can never forget when its the weekend, I just have to look around at the mess the people who come into the city leave all about.
But it doesn't matter to them, cause they don't have to wake up to it.
It makes me want to hate the out of towners and maybe *maybe* a little bit visit their home and just throw rubbish about.
Why do people have to be such asses?
Thanks for distracting me from clipping coupons and cleaning the kitchen.
As one who lives in the worst city in America, (according to some survey) OUR drunk drivers are all experienced and fulla crack and meth so they don't have as much lag time, plus they all have guns and like to shoot, dey like to shoot da gun. Pow pow, bang bang. Everybody drives. No body takes the bus except the Infected Ones.
Ah, sigh, See, I should have read in reverse and saved your latest post for last. My heart was lifted by your little guy and now I'm thinking of glass breakers and wieners. Fun. Feckers.
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