kerewin's whine cellar

I Almost Died And I Am Retarded

Those two things aren't actually related, except that both happened to me this evening.

Act One: I Almost Died (Okay, that isn't true, I Was Almost Paralyzed)

We went to see the matinee of Walk The Line this afternoon. I enjoyed the movie, but that isn't really the point. We walked out to the parking lot and got into our car. As I was about to start the car I looked into the rearview mirror and noticed the BMW behind us had its brake lights on, about to reverse. It was a large space to backup in, but I decided to just wait for the car to be completely gone before I started our car. So I was looking right into the rearview mirror as the car reversed and kept reversing. I had one of those surreal moments where you just KNOW that even though that car is about 6 feet away, it is going to hit you. Then it did. Then the driver just put the car into drive and started to drive away. The hub jumped out of the passenger seat and started yelling at the driver. Meanwhile, I got out to look at the bumper (which had a 6 inch dirt streak that will likely buff out).

The driver upon hearing the Hub yell, stopped and put the car immediately into reverse. Again, surreally I watched the car back up right towards me. It didn't stop. I don't know why I didn't move away, but I did yell out, "HEY!" My yell got the guy to stop whereupon I just said out loud, "Jesus Christ!"

This little old man, somewhere in his late 70s, got out of the car. He was all flustered and clearly upset. He just kept saying over and over, "I'm sorry! This is upsetting to me too! I'm sorry!"

I was so shook and felt so bad for the poor little guy that I just ended up lecturing him, "SIR, you HAVE to be more careful backing up. There's ALL THIS ROOM here. Then you almost hit me and you didn't realize it. All I am saying is that you have to be more careful!"

Each entreaty on my part just received the standard, "I'm sorry!" Then we let him drive off into the dark, hoping he wouldn't attempt to maim anyone else on his way home. As I got back into the car I my hands shook a little and I felt like I couldn't really drive. Luckily the Hub offered before I had to say. So then we got out of the car again, and changed seats. A man walked up to us and asked if we were okay. Then he told us he witnessed the whole thing and even wrote down his contact information, and the license plate of the BMW driver. He thought we should call State Patrol, if only to get the ball rolling on them asking the guy in to check his driving skills.

It pretty much ruined the glow I had from the movie.

Act Two: I Am Retarded

I love David Sedaris. I love him so much that I have read all of his books AND bought Me Talk Pretty One Day on iTunes. Read by David Sedaris. So this Summer when I drove down to Oregon I was very excited to listen to it (using my newly purchased iTrip!) because David read outloud by David is much funnier than read by me in my head. Therefore it was extremely disappointing to me to hear this odd echo in the reading. It really got on my nerves and I vowed never to buy another iTunes book, because I only wanted to play them in the car and I thought it was the iTrip.

By tonight I had completely forgotten about this vow. I was looking on the iTunes store for interesting Johnny Cash tunes to listen to, because of the movie. I got sidetracked by a listing for This American Life, another one of my favorite things in the world. However, I hardly ever listen to it anymore because I am not driving to the winery tasting room on Saturdays, like I did back when I worked for Blank Washington Winery. My drive always coincided with the local transmission. But hey! I drive all the time DURING the week now and I have this handy iPod and iTrip and I can listen to these all week long. I bought eleven. ELEVEN broadcasts.

Then after updating my iPod, I eagerly found my headphones to listen to one of them. Shit! Echo! I forgot. Since I was chatting online with a friend, I complained about the echo. She merely asked me if there was an equalizer on my iPod. Huh. Well I started looking through settings, and while I didn't find something equalizing, I did find that it was set to play audiocasts on slow. I bumped it up to normal and lo and behold, perfect sound.

Posted by kerewin at November 27, 2005 12:32 AM