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I got a call from someone I should never listen to last night. It was just about midnight (when I was on my way to bed), and she asked me if I was up for doing something. Namely, driving her down to the bluffs.
<- looks at watch.
<- looks at phone.
<- looks at clock.
It's frigging midnight! She wants me to drive her down to the bluffs to "watch the stars"?!?
I was out of the building in ten minutes.
I drove down to one of her friend's places where she and a bunch of friends were hanging out. After a few minutes of checking out the new car and going over some steps for buying a used car, I drove the five of us down to the bluffs.
I was a little surprised to see a number of people down there at this time of the night. There was a police cruiser parked in the lot, and we made our way to one end of the parking lot, as my car could really only seat four people. Our motley crew wandered down to the big rocks where we set up camp and chilled for the next hour. One of the girls kept asking me questions, like "what do you do?", "do you have a girlfriend?", "are you looking for a girlfriend?".
When she found out how old I was she was like,
"I thought you were twenty five!"
Apparently the braces made me look younger.
Anyway, our little antagonist told me that she wanted to check out a really creepy road out on the East end. I knew that road, and had rode on it with SS last month, but I couldn't recall any scary bits. Mind you, we were riding during the day, so maybe things look different at night?
In any case, we dropped off one of the girls, and the rest of us booted it out East. They were quite a noisy bunch. (Actually, she was the noisy bunch, with way too much energy for someone of that age.)
In any case, the "scary road" was somewhat underwhelming. There's an old cemetery there, and there wasn't anything going on. I decided that it was time to get some food, as it was already three in the morning. After driving around for a bit, we found a Denny's and stopped for a bite to eat.
I think there were a number of proms that had taken place that night as there were a number of girls that were dressed up, and another group that looked like they were dressed up in Victorian style clothing.
Actually, one thing I heard was a comment about one of the girls in the prom party. Apparently she had a "butter face". Everything about her looked good but her face. Since I was facing away from everything I couldn't see, but I didn't think it would be polite to stare.
After finishing our meal, our little antagonist suggested that we go down to Niagara Falls.
<- blinks.
Niagara Falls? What?!?
Apparently they have gone down to Niagara Falls many times, but every time they end up in the hotel and drink themselves stupid so that they don't see the falls during the night, and they're too hung over to see it the next day. (To be young and stupid again.) Besides, she told me that it would only take forty-five minutes to drive there.
Forty-five minutes.
Considering that we were at the Eastern border of Toronto at that time, I was thinking more like two hours, and that was even going at fairly substantial speeds. (I think I could have done it in an hour and a half at cop magnet speeds.)
Partly to prove her wrong and partly to remove this excuse to ever visit Niagara Falls again, I relented, and started driving down to the falls.
They did a pretty piss poor job of staying up to keep me company. The music she listened to was putting me to sleep (rap and hip hop) and the only thing that normally keeps me awake (conversation) was difficult over the music.
I was surprised to make it down to the city without blacking out. It was getting close near the end though.
There was virtually nobody around at that time (around five-thirty) and we had full run of the area. I didn't feel like sleeping at that time, and we hung around for half an hour at the falls before deciding to head back home.
I wanted to take a nap, but someone had to work the next day.. er.. that day, and was pressed for time. This meant that I had no time to take a break as nobody else knew how to drive standard.
This was a dangerous combination as I did start to lose consciousness on the way back. Fortunately, the rest of them were awake and kept me up for most of the trip back. Unfortunately, they all live out on the East end, and I had to drop each one of them off individually. This added a lot of time to my commute and by the time I dropped off the last of them, it was already getting close to nine.
At that moment, I probably should have stopped the car to take a nap, but I was actually feeling good, so I drove home. I was doing fine and was just about home when..
I woke up and saw the curb approaching very quickly. I swerved to the right but I was much too late and the car hit the curb with a loud bang. The impact lifted the left side of the car off the ground and I tried desperately to regain control of the vehicle. With the squealing tires and lack of control, I wasn't able to stop the car from hitting the curb with another loud bang. By then I had slowed down enough to regain control of the car and coast to the intersection.
I was lucky. There were no other cars around, as I had passed by the only other car in the area (he was out of sight when the incident occurred and only came into view as I got to the intersection). The curb itself was low, about five inches so the only point of impact were the tires and rims. The body of the car was not touched. The impact was along a gradually turning road, and not a head on impact.
I still damaged the car though. I could tell just by driving.
At least I stayed awake for the rest of the drive back to the condo. I figured that I was too tired to do anything useful so I went straight to bed. No point getting angry when you're too tired to do anything about it.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 15:05:11 (UTC)
Whoa! That's quite the story! At least you're unhurt physically -- you ARE unhurt, right?
Also, who are these individuals that they should make you drive around in the still of the night?
Hwano
Wednesday, June 21, 2006 at 12:57:34 (UTC)
Yikes! Good job you fell asleep while not moving too quick - lucky with the low curb as well. Get some more sleep!
llamawama <e-mail>
Wednesday, June 21, 2006 at 14:42:14 (UTC)
Ja, I was very lucky. I'm physically unhurt, and was just pissed off that this happened so close to home. Mind you, it was the one spot on the way back which would have the least amount of collateral damage. Another place, like on the highway (with high speed) or on the streets (with traffic and pedestrians) would have been a disaster.
Yet another lesson learned.
QYV