XPost: alt.slack, alt.cars, alt.drunken.bastards   
   XPost: alt.law-enforcement   
   From: NoRestraint@all.kassner.oop   
      
     I miraculously survived both the 3-story apartment building 200 feet   
   from mine burning to the ground last Monday and the vicious ice storm   
   that caught me around the soft parts Wednesday as I hied my ass to the   
   highway for an Xmas trip to the dear-but-not-so-near 80 miles yonder,   
   having last seen only a report of light snow on the way. It wasn't all   
   schnapps & skittles, oh no. A 1.5 hour trip became a 4-hour exercise in   
   fruitless cursing and prayers to Crom. Praise my car, which handled the   
   ordeal beyond the point of no return like a champ.   
      
    While enjoying the tooth-gritting pleasure of doing 35 mph and LESS in   
   2nd gear over increasingly dangerous and hilly roads, I was treated to   
   the vision of a woman sliding out of control about 400 feet ahead of me.   
   She was promptly hit by a semi behind her, once in the trunk, then a   
   second time, which spun her around mightily and half-crushed the front   
   side of the car. This sent both sliding into the grassy median.   
      
    Her head was leaning back on the headrest, the driver's side glass   
   knocked out completely. I'm sure she was not doing it because she was   
   enraptured by the musical stylings of the Red Hot Chili Peppers on the   
   radio. There is a certain look to the departed and she had it.   
      
    Having no cell phone -and I'm damned well going to acquire one of some   
   sort NOW- I was fortunate to skirt the mess and kept going, as   
   clambering across a frozen highway with no cell or medical gear seemed   
   foolish when the semi had not rolled over and almost surely contained a   
   still-capable driver with a radio intact. Likewise, at least 40% of   
   those behind me statistically had phones, so risking mangling or death   
   under those terms had a poor cost/benefit ratio.   
      
    The next day, the news reported that she had indeed snuffed it.   
   T.h.e.m. does not mention it often, but side collisions often result in   
   broken necks. The serious sound I heard through closed windows would   
   support that idea in this instance. TV and movie violence is presented   
   as elegant, exciting; in reality, its simply a flat crack and some   
   crumpling that heralds no glamour whatsoever.   
      
    That's the 3rd collision I have seen that resulted in deaths. The first   
   was when I walked out of my radio station at 3 a.m. just in time to see   
   3 joyriders wrap their VW around a tree in a quite-final fashion. The   
   2nd was on the Gulf Freeway in Houston, where a very noisy altercation   
   between 3 vehicles left an actual whole ARM visible 2 lanes over from   
   me. Its owner was not nearly as close to it as he or she surely would   
   have preferred.   
      
    I always wear my seatbelt like it was a personal gift from Buddha and   
   had The Antidote To All Things Bad in it. In a sense, it does, at least   
   part of the time. I don't need to be flung through the window at high   
   speed to grasp the concept of becoming a human version of 3rd base or   
   dead if I become too complacent about what it can mean. All I have to do   
   is remember seeing three guys oozing pink froth as firefighters pried   
   them from that VW or that detached arm on the freeway to make it seem   
   like a truly swell idea.   
      
    My balls leapt into my throat so hard when I saw this unfold, it left 2   
   dents you could rest lemons in. God rest the cops who have to confront   
   these events. I'm still alive, with all of my limbs intact, concerning   
   which I am both further sobered and grateful. The click of that harness   
   as you set out on your journies and 15 miles per hour less inertia can   
   mean everything in a pinch.   
      
    Ask not for whom the bell tolls, because sometimes its not a bell....   
   its the sudden sound of metal versus metal and all you are, all you held   
   dear and all of those who held you dear simultaneously disappearing on   
   sudden, dark wings.   
      
   --   
      
    HellPope Huey   
      People applauded rather than throwing fruit.   
      I take this as a good sign.   
      
      Infinite goodness   
       is creating a being you know, in advance,   
        is going to complain.   
          - William Peter Blatty, "Ninth Configuration"   
      
      "Does the noise in my head bother you,   
         bother you, bother you, bother you?"   
              - Loop Guru, "Loop Bites Dog"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)