I was driving north on the Beltway, getting outside of DC. In the fast lane, going a pretty good clip, not many cars, sun out. In my side view mirror I see a car in the HOV lane coming up quick. A black Bimmer. An old 3 series, with the top down. As the car rips by, I caught a glimpse. I saw lots of blond hair blowing in the wind, dark sunglasses and very red lips. She was singing, I was thinking the radio was on loud. I also noticed that she was blowing black smoke from the car’s dual exhaust pipes……
Not two miles on, coming up a hill, and I see a car in the left-most lane. It’s black. And it’s not moving at all. My heart skips a few beats; this looks like trouble. I hit the brakes and try to move right, but I’m blocked. As I was adjusting to where I wanted to be, a China Town Bus, marked NYC, comes flying by on my left.
The bus driver did a hell of job. He hit the brakes hard, and brought the bus to a halt as quick as a bus with 600k miles, and worn brakes could. Unfortunately, he missed by about five feet. That proved to be a critical five feet, the bus smacked into the back of the car, and of course, it was blond hair and red lips that he hit.
You would be amazed at what the front bumper of a bus can do to a BMW, even if the impact is at a low speed. Basically, the trunk of the car ended up in the back seat.
I pull over, other cars are slowing down. I get out, and run the two hundred yards to where the car and the bus have ended up. I get close; the lady is fine, she’s trying to open the now stuck side door.
I yank the door hard – nothing. So I did what I thought might be the right thing – I kicked the door as hard as I could in the hopes of getting it loose. Some how, that single kick tripped the side airbags off.
Bang! A cloud of white smoke, black sunglasses flying, Blondie is covered with dust, and she is pissed.
The bus driver is out by now, seeing that no one is hurt, him laughing at the airbags going off, saying,“What the F…!” “Why did you stop on the road?”
Blondie is out of the car (the door was locked, not jammed), her looking pretty good in spite of the white powder and all, saying to the driver, “F-you!” then turning to me, “F-you too”.
She reaches into the car, grabs a briefcase and yanks it out (I did think “gun” for a second or two). She was just going for a phone, but the latches were loose on the case; the top flipped open, and papers and junk went flying into the air. That was Blondie’s last straw, she’s screaming obscenities, chasing paper. The bus driver is looking at the Bimmer, surprised by what he sees, saying, “It was just a tap”.
I grabbed a few bits of loose paper, handed them to Blondie. She grabs them, looking at me as if this all my fault. So I leave the scene, thinking what a hard-boiled egg this lady is. By my car, I find another set of papers, no doubt, part of Blondie’s litter. I thought about going back, to give it to her, then thought better of that, threw it in the back seat, and took off.
I just looked at those papers. Holy Smokes! What do you make of this?
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If you’ve made it this far, and your confused and a tad angry, relax; this is just a story. There was no Blondie, or a found memo.
I will say that all of things in that bus accident actually did take place at one time or another with me in the picture, I just mushed them together to tell a tale.
And as for the memo, well there is a fair bit of truth behind my cynicism. You’d never see those words in print, nor spoken by anyone, but the sentiments and thinking I tried to portray are very real. My point here, this is going to get ugly before it ends, and the two sides really do hate each other.
Now you can rail me for stringing you along. My thinking is that if the Onion can do it, I can try. I’m just hoping that few folks in D.C. get a chuckle or two.
So you know, that logo from the letter? That is from the Boy Scouts of America, so I don’t think this fooled the D.C. folks for too long….
