lizzielou.com

The Intersection of Death, aka the IOD, may well need to be renamed the Intersection of Shenanigans. All’s been quiet here for quite some time (in re crashes and smashes) since our crosswalks and stoplights ignited. Until last Sunday. I was reading in the living room and Lolly was in the bath when we heard – you guessed it! – a loud thud. Then nothing, only a car passing outside. I was just coming to the conclusion that the loud thud, whilst sounding like a car hitting something, was only the benign jostling of a trash container or something when – you guessed it again! – there was another LOUDER thud.

“…What was that?” asked a small damp voice.

“Oh crap.” I walked to the front door to see. “I bet it was probably an – OHMYGAWD!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!” I shouted out through the screen door as I watched a silver car reverse itself off the fender of a parked white car, lurch forward in the street, accelerate, smash into a parked motorcycle, lurch back into the street, and then careen along the sidewalk for a few more yards.

I thought the driver was trying to Flee The Scene and started spinning in place in a panic and looking for something to put on so I could run down the road. I wasn’t the only witness. A woman from the house across the street was already running down the silver car, a few others started to come out too. I went for the camera thinking that if the driver left I could have some evidence and stuff. When I got back to the front door, there was a soggy Lolly standing in the doorway in her towel.

“I got the camera. You’re naked! What’s happening!?!”

“I’m not naked. They’re on the corner talking to the driver.”

The driver was a youngish woman clad in a Seahawks jersey (there was game that afternoon), shorts and flip flops. She had a large purse. She was talking on her cellphone and talking to the neighbor at the same time. They went into the neighbor’s house and seemed to be exchanging information, names and insurance and whatnot. The first loud thud turned out to have been the neighbor’s car around the corner. The white car and the MC each belonged to someone else and the neighbor seemed to be getting information for them too. Driver Woman (DW) was then back walking around on the sidewalk, curiously remorseless (like maybe she did this kind of thing all the time) and still on her cellphone.

“Why are you standing naked in the doorway like that?”

I’m NOT naked. Nobody’s looking and who cares. What’s that guy doing?”

DW had returned to her car and was sitting in the driver’s seat. A man walked up and opened her passenger door. We thought perhaps he was her cellphone friend or the host of whatever juiced football party she had been at in the neighborhood, but then he wasn’t being very compassionate when they walked over to look at the motorcycle together. She said something about having to ‘go to work tomorrow.’ He said something about her having ‘bigger things to deal with now.’ The guy went to talk to the other neighbors who were up on their porch. The first neighbor was now on her phone giving details about the accident(s) to someone. DW was back in her car again.

“Why aren’t the police here? Do you think she’s drunk or something? She must be drunk or something. Usually they’re here by now.”

“I don’t know! I would have thought they’d call them! Why are you still standing here naked!?! Will you talk to the police when they get here, Naked?”

“I am NOT NAKED. I am wearing more than I would be wearing if I were just wearing a bathing suit. Sheesh. Why are you still shouting?”

“I’m not SHOUTING HOLY SHIT WHAT IS SHE DOING NOW!?!”

DW started up her car, jerked forward, scraped along the curb, stopped, reversed, pulled into the road at an awkward angle, stopped, jerked forward, scraped along the curb and up onto the sidewalk, reversed back towards the MC again, stopped, pulled into the road at an awkward angle, stopped, jerked violently forward, scraped along the curb and sidewalk and toward yet another car, stopped, reversed, stopped, jerked, scraped, stopped, reversed, jerked, scraped, stopped. (I mean… holy god, just stop driving already you stupid douchebag.) I do think she was trying to drive away again. I was afraid. I hoped that if she was actually shit-faced the neighbors would have stopped her from getting in her car.

“Why do you think that? I mean, what are they going to do? Bodily restrain her?”

“I don’t know, Naked Lady. Maybe they could do a citizen’s arrest or something. She was right in their house. They could have kept her in there and called the POlice.”

“I’m going to finish my bath. Call me if something else happens.”

It was starting to get dark out, but finally a police car showed up. The officer got out, looked around and started taking statements from the neighbors and the confronty guy and DW herself. Another police car rolled up on the scene and the new officers assisted. I pressed my little nosy head to the screen door, but I couldn’t make out all that they were saying. I stood quite obviously in my doorway so that if the police would like to take my statement I would be available and not at all too naked to talk to them. They never did come ask me what I saw thought, so I stayed there making snarky bitter comments about DW to myself.

“Ooh hey! Sobriety test!” I called.

“What’s that? What?” Lolly came back. “Shhhh. Let’s listen….”

“I’m glad you have clothes on now.”

“SHHH!”

“Shhhhh! Don’t distract her. We don’t want to make her fail her DUI test.”

DW had to listen to some lengthy instructions. She had to hold her arms out, hold them at her sides, tilt her head back, count backwards from 53 to 31, hold her leg out in front of her for a few seconds -

“OOP! I don’t think she was supposed to put her foot down yet!”

“Why aren’t they just breathalyzing her?”

“Maybe she’s under the influence of something else. Like Xanax.”

“Like she’d go to a football party and take a Xanax. Whoo hoo! Fun party!”

- then hold her other leg out in front of her for a few seconds, touch her nose, and mostly just pay attention and do what she was told. The officer asked her to walk in a straight line, heel-to-toe, for several paces then turn and walk back the same way. He demonstrated this for her and then told her to go ahead.

“Ooooh. That’s not heel-to-toe! There’s like 5 inches between each step. She’s not doing what he told her to do AT ALL! She’s just walking like  – whatever!”

“Oooooh! That’s NOT heel-to-toe. Maybe she’s afraid she’ll step on the back of her own flip-flop and trip and the fail the test!”

.

.

.

“I’m starting to feel a little sorry for her now. The stupid moron.”

“I know. Me too.”

The officer explained that based on his observations and assessment she was something we couldn’t hear because some cars went by. He walked her to the back of the police car, had her empty her pockets, cuffed her and put her in the back seat. A few minutes later they drove off. The woman who owned the white car eventually showed up and spoke to the police. Later in the evening the owner of the MC showed up too. The next morning the silver car was gone. Maybe DW was able to bail herself out and get to work after all.

The End.

There has been not insignificant activity outside the house over the last day or so.

First off, the IOD. It now has functioning lights, cross-walks and all. There are still a few problems. The one that has been remedied had Lolly reporting yesterday afternoon that the lights were indicating Green-Go-Cars and White-Walk-Pedestrians at the same time. Certainly that was just going to make things worse. The other problem is that people will pause at the light, then drive through anyway eventhough they are no longer allowed to do so. Because I am so loving and optimistic I wanted to believe that they simply didn’t see the new signs and flashing lights and big orange traffic cones, but actually, they are simply douches. Anyway, we’ll see if the new properly functioning lights can pierce through the IOD’s cloud of evil.

Second off, the neighbor’s house. Yesterday morning as I was getting ready for work I noticed a car, a jeep with New Jersey plates. As I furrowed my brow and pressed my nose up to the window I thought, I hope it isn’t someone I went to high school with! Later in the day a moving truck came and things were unloaded and a lady was giving directions. I kept Lolly busy giving me reports on what was happening on that side of the house as well but she never got a peek at the new peeps. This morning, in the daylight, there is a bright plastic kiddy climbing thing out in the backyard. So I guess those rumors about some people with toddlers moving in are probably true. I hope those kids haven’t learned to swear yet so they don’t understand the words that frequently float out of our house. Poor children. You’d never guess that such a charming pink gingerbread house was home to such curmudgeons.

It’s hard to believe isn’t it. I have no idea how this one happened. I look out the window precisely at the time of impact and suddenly this gold car is sailing backwards through the intersection and up the onto the retaining wall and the steps across the street. This is right where people stand waiting to cross. Luckily there wasn’t anyone there at that moment. I can’t even get angry anymore; it’s just sad, sad, sad. Even the jack-o-lantern face on the not-yet-functioning crosswalk sign looks sad.

That creeping blackness you see on the left side of the photo is the edge of the cloud of evil that lingers in the IOD.

I was saving this as a Birthday Surprise, the spread of my great influence from the national to local:

I did it again! The intersection of death is getting crosswalks, walk/don’t walk signal boxes, and some sort of traffic light!

However, it is not finished yet. The lights aren’t up and the signal boxes are still covered, so this afternoon we heard a CRASH that shook our house. I thought momentarily that perhaps Lolly had fallen down the stairs …carrying a 27 inch television set and at least two five gallon water bottles… or that a surly mailman delivered something very large and heavy to the front porch. (That defibrillator on my Amazon Wish List perhaps?) But no, ’twas another accident. There were large chunks of debris in the intersection, bumpers and car doors etc., but many airbags were deployed and apparently no one was seriously injured.

Due to the fact that someone in authoritah has obviously been reading my blog (I suspect the mayor, at least, if not Governor Gregoire) and is attempting to remedy the situation, I didn’t feel the need to take photos. Also I was only wearing a bath towel at the time and there was commotion enough.

So again I report of an accident in our intersection this evening. A tubby older guy in a sporty Lexus with a bluetooth doodad jammed in his ear went motoring across the intersection and into a guy zipping by on a Vespa. The guy landed on the corner and his Vespa about half a block down the street. The ambulance driver only found one of his green flip-flops. He was speaking and able to move his arms as they loaded him up so a) not dead and b) probably not paralyzed. Lexus douche got to drive home.
I didn’t take a photo. I was too mad and it was too ugly. I settled for a lot of swearing and heckling the police from behind my front door.

Last Saturday when it was raining – in Seattle, big surprise – there was yet another accident at the intersection in front of our house, causing us to feel compelled to call 911 yet again.

Just the evening before we had been relating our previous unpleasant encounters with the 911 operator. And here we were, having another. It pissed me off again so I posted immediately that… “Seattle 911 Operators are Assholes. And if anyone from the City of Seattle comes across this statement and would like to comment about why this is so. Feel Fucking Free.” [Even after Linsey's supportive comment, I deleted the post for being too harsh. But oh look, here it is. Kinda.] The operator was rude yet again, you see. She was being bitchy about us not knowing which specific persons were in need of medical assistance even though we wouldn’t have been calling if no one needed help. When I told her that the people involved were making their own calls, she hung up on me.

Yesterday, there was another accident. And although Lolly and I have decided how to handle the rude operators when we feel their services are needed, we deemed it not necessary in this case as the people were already walking about and on their phones. I tuned in to the real time dispatch however and to my dismay, it wasn’t reported.

You may think it callous and strange of me to stomp out on to my front porch and take pictures of car accidents. I think I should have been doing it since we moved in. I can’t tell you how many times we have been sickened by the sound of screeching brakes, thuds, crunches, and sirens. Here is a more dramatic one:

August 23, 2005 1 p.m. Motor Vehicle Accident – This was when the van drove up over the sidewalk and onto the neighbor’s lawn. That morning as I was walking to the bus stop I noticed all the landscaping they had done that weekend. Lolly started emailing pictures to me at work as she described the scene. The neighbor came out of her house after the collision and started yelling about her shrubbery while the medics were attending to the driver. Apparently freaking out about all that landscaping work. And probably freaking out that she could have been run over if she was out there with the baby and the dog. Still, not so sympathetic to the guy. We don’t know why he careened out of control and there were no other vehicles involved.

And another:

October 31, 2006 8 p.m. Motor Vehicle Accident, Heavy Rescue – We actually didn’t call about this one because the thud wasn’t very loud. A motorcyclist getting run over by a minivan apparently doesn’t make very much noise. The sirens did however. Our only trick-or-treater filled me in when he came to the door (with his mother waiting down at the sidewalk) having come from that direction. I asked if he could tell all that was going on but it was pretty dark. He told me about the crying family in the minivan and the crumpled up motorcycle and the blood in the road and the guy under the car. I stood there pretty shocked that it was so serious while the kid stood there staring back at me. “Um… trick or treat?” he said and held out his bag for candy.

After this we named it the intersection of death, or “IOD” for short. We do our best to avoid it.

So, Dear Readers, please be extra careful when you pass by!