Thursday, December 10, 2009

Car Goes Boom

On November 16, 2009, I did the meme where you tell nine truths and one lie. You can find my list HERE if you didn’t get to read it the first time. I said I would elaborate on the experiences I listed.
Doug from WAKING AMBROSE remembered when I told the story about running into the back of an armored car (item number 5 on my list) way back on January 23, 2007. It’s interesting to see who of those that commented are still visiting here (I love you, guys.)
I reprint the story now (and it also tells the story of item number 8 on my list):

The Bread Truck
The story you are about to hear is a cautionary tale. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent (namely me) and no animals were hurt in the telling of this tale. Professionals did not do the stunts, but don’t try this at home anyway; that would be pure craziness. Remember children: drugs and alcohol don’t mix; use them separately.

~ ~ ~

Things were different in the late seventies. People drank. People drugged. People sexed. People danced. These things happened openly and with a great sense of pride and excitement. You could walk into any office and see lines of coke running parallel across the desk of a company’s president with his workers ranged around him, everyone imbibing. People carried pills around like they were Valentine’s Day confections. Disco bounced and gyrated the bodies of silkily dressed girls and tight pantsed, polyester clad boys. Men wore gold chains around their exposed chests and knuckle rings with big stones on manicured fingers. Women went braless in all of their natural low cut bounty. Life partied heartily.

I came from a very middle class background and found it all fascinating. I flitted from one experience to another, marveling at the alien world I saw other people living.
One of the places that always fascinated me was Go-Go bars. We call them Gentlemen’s Clubs now. I got a job running the business side of the bar. I booked the dancers, ordered the alcohol, hired bartenders and kept the books. The owner always tried to get me to dance or tend bar. He thought a buxom blonde would be good for business. I politely declined as both positions required fewer clothes than I wanted to wear.

I got to know the women who danced (and other things) in these bars. I searched for the poor woman who danced to support her child or the one who tried to better her self by making money for college. Somehow these women never materialized. Most of these girls hooked from one drug hit to the next. Glamour didn’t party with any of them; desperation, heartache and addiction sat on barstools and twisted around poles.

Through one of these women, I found a doctor in Philadelphia who specialized in weight loss using “real” diet pills. Pink, white and green pills gave me energy and took away my appetite. I took sixteen of these in various combinations throughout the day. At night, blue pills would calm my body down enough for it to relax but they had the opposite effect on my mind. Under regular circumstances my dreams are peopled with fantastic beasts and heroes of epic proportion. While taking these prescription sleeping pills, monsters that made Godzilla look like a baby bunny chased me and psychopathic killers lusted after my loved ones. I stopped taking the sleeping pills.

I quit eating (but I looked good.) I slept about an hour a day and some people said I talked to myself in long drawn out and involved conversations. I went for a week like this.
The Go-Go bar owner had a party one night. It was the first time he allowed me to socialize with the dancers, bartenders and patrons. The owner bought drinks for everyone. Men showered me with attention, being the new girl in the group. I drank liberally and soaked up the sweet words directed at me. I became giddy with drink, pills, a lack of food, sleep and accolades. One man even sang to me.

When the bar closed at two, the party moved to an all-night club that had live bands. I drove myself and a few other party goers. We danced and drank until the sun came up. We went to a diner for breakfast. Toast and home fries tasted great after not eating for a week.
I drove home as the sun rose. I gave a lift to one of the dancers who went out with us to the late night club. The air chilled us and the dancer needed her rest, so we kept the radio off and the heat on and all of the windows closed. I’m so considerate.

Someone screamed in my sleep. I woke up slowly, wondering where all of the noise came from and who disturbed my peaceful slumber. I was cozy in the warm car and hadn’t felt this good in months. I heard screaming about someone being dead. I peeked out of my eyes.
On the left, out of the driver’s side window, the dancer ran up and down the highway, trying to flag down other drivers. Through the windshield and on the right, I saw trees. One tree even bent over the hood of the car. I went back to sleep.

I heard some tapping which I totally ignored. I was having some sort of sweet dream and I did not want to be disturbed. The tapping was accompanied by someone calling my name. Someone in a uniform leaned over me and opened the driver’s door. Other people in uniforms lifted me onto a stretcher.

I recognized that some of the people were emergency workers and others were policemen. The policemen kept asking me questions about what happened and wanted to know if I had been drinking. I giggled at that questions and answered honestly about partying all night long.

“Do you know what happened here?” asked one of the policemen.

“I fell asleep,” I answered.

“Do you know you hit something?” asked the other officer.

“Yes, I think I do.”

“Do you know what you hit?”

“I ran into the back of a Wonder bread truck.”

First, there was silence then everyone burst into laughter. The policemen, the ambulance workers, the other drivers who had stopped were all laughing at me.


“What’s so funny?” I mumbled in my half dozing state.

“You ran into a bread truck, alright,” said one of the cops, “you hit the back of an armored car.”

~ ~ ~

I suffered a fractured sternum and whiplash. The innocent dancer had a cut on her forehead. The car did not survive. No tickets were issued and no one lost their license. I gave up pills, cut down on my drinking and quit my job at the Go-Go bar.

* * *
Quilly’s Three Word Thursday at The “other” Chrysalis Stage
Thursday 13 at Esoteric Uncovered

21 comments:

  1. Now I remember this story! I started reading and thought -- I've read this before! I wish I'd have remembered it when I was trying to sort out your truths from your lie!

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  2. OMG why wasn't I blogging back then to read this the first time. What a story my friend. You were very lucky. Now I see where the woo woo's come from. :)

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  3. Wow! Glad you lived to tell the tale. The 70's were a mess, weren't they?

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  4. hey there i wanted to give you a heads up, today is the g-mans birthday and i have a card for him on my blog. my goal is to get as many flash 55 players as possible to copy and post the card on their blog, he is not feeling well and so he won't be checking on us until later. so i think we can give him a cyber birthday surprise. ok i have a lot of other bloggers to invite, have a wonderful day!!!

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  5. Boy the angels were working TRIPLE time that night! HOW did you manage to NOT get a citation for that? I'm so glad you learned from it...

    You lived in a different 70's than I did! LOL!

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  6. I'm glad! Except for the managing part, which would be beyond her, this whole thing strikingly resembles an episode of Pansi's life.

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  7. my favorite part is the giving up eating and looking good.
    goal city.

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  8. I really hate to laugh at your misfortune, but it's too good a story not to enjoy.

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  9. Yup and I would have been the one pulling the person out of the car lol
    or stopping the person from driving this way.
    I never did drugs or booze because I saw what happened to other people.
    I was the one stopping my friends walking out third floor windows for a breath of fresh air and getting them mad for doing it.
    I liked the flower power generation except for the drugs and alcohol part.It was a scene I probably remember a lot more than they do. lol

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  10. I had to laugh. It's one of those stories that sound funny later, but at the time you realize how lucky you were to survive in one piece.

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  11. What a crazy story! It reminds me of my brother-in-law. I gave him a plaque that say "Never drive faster then your guardian angel can fly" I think you may have the fastest angel out there!

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  12. Such an exciting life you have led and you write a great story. I took the link checked out the the answers to you Meme but could not leave a comment, did you close the comments on it? I'll leave my answer here. Sadly I am not a brave girl I have done none of the things you listed but I think number 3 is the falsehood.
    hugs!

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  13. I love this story. Oh my God!

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  14. I really enjoyed this, Nessa. The 70's were different experiences for us all. Thank you so much for sharing yours. You did have an angel. I love how you described everything - even the sleeeep feeling soo good.

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  15. Ness,

    I'm inviting you not to link to my site again. I don't find your brand of humor all that amusing.

    Thanking you in advance ...

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  16. Oh Dear, Karen is upset.

    I have to say that I, amiddle class Englishman with working class roots, having read this and knowing that America must be really like this, have booked my flight!

    Come read The Wilful Walks of C.J. Duffy

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  17. I love this story! A Wonder Bread truck.

    I'll be chuckling about this one all day.

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  18. Lucky to be alive, eh? Did you make this up? Were you actually the driver of the armoured truck?

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  19. The writer of goldennib.blogspot.com has written a superior article. I got your point and there is nothing to argue about. It is like the following universal truth that you can not disagree with: Corollary to #6275: Except when your a smartass yourself, in that case you will like yourself but dislike other smartasses more. I will be back.

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