May 22nd, 2005, 7:48 pm

I wrecked my car

Blondes have more fun, huh?

Not this one.

Newly minted, I have been blessed with a crown of holy shit ever since.

Let’s go at it: Friday morning, drizzly. Slick roads. Temperamental car. Tired driver.

You know where this is going … as I went up the curve of Boulevard, a million things happened at once.

A silver GMC Yukon, loaded with tiles for a construction job, came to a stop.

My ‘rolla (as in Co-rolla), was accelerating to make the hill. The road was wet, and time compressed. I hit the brakes. The brakes locked. The wheels wouldn’t stop. I looked to the right; was there a space to make a move? — but the hood folded up like a V, and my car went under the bumper of the giant SUV, and bounced back.

It was only later that I realized that the force of accident knocked my car back at least ten feet — or maybe the Yukon pulled forward?

I looked and my Powerbook was on the floor of the passenger side. My legs were shaking, in the same crazy rabbit way they did that one time after I went and interviewed a mortician in a morgue surrounded by the smell of chemicals and rotting flesh.

“It smells like burning” — the refrain from the Simpsons — floated over and over in my head.

The airbags disappointed me — they only inflated partly; with clouds of powder or smoke. The beige vinyl of my dash was ripped. In my memory, I see wires hanging loose from the steering wheel, but looking back, I think I imagined that detail.

The Yukon in front of me seemed undamaged — with scrapes to the bumper, and a bent trailer hitch. My poor little bumper had been pushed under and splayed flat; the headlights I had replaced a total of three times in four years hung from wires. Later, someone hit the hazard lights, and I found that they still worked. My tires were whole, my engine seemed solid.

But a ‘98 Corolla, in less-than-pristine condition, is valued at $3,600, Kelly Blue Book. From my prior experience wrecking cars, it would cost much, much more than that to fix the damage.

I was fine, for the most part, managing to call the cops and the insurance company and the software vendor we were working with, to let them know I’d be offline for a few hours.

My Powerbook, thank God, survived without a scratch.

It wasn’t until later that I began to ache — a pounding near my shoulder where the seatbelt had been, a neck and back aching for some Flexeril.

I took the day off from work Saturday (no, technically I do not have to work on the weekends, but you know I do), and laid around, contemplating what I had done.

I’d been going too fast. Ignoring those rules — have current registration, transfer the car title to your name, and, apparently, make sure the state of Arizona hasn’t cancelled your license. (Which, surprise, surprise, it had.) To be fair, I’ve moved three times in four different states in the past 12 months; I was never around long enough to do any paperwork. And, in the state of Georgia, your registration expires on your birthday — mine is May 28 — so I thought I could just wait a week and do it post-launch of the new websites, May 31, when I would have an hour to myself.

But I was wrong to wait: now the remains of the car are waiting in a police impound somewhere — to get them out, I have to have current registration. Which I can’t do until my car passes an emissions test. Which, clearly, it is not going to do anytime soon. And I can’t register the car period until I have a Georgia’s license. And I can’t get one of those until I get a birth certificate in the mail. Whenever that will be. A joyful $85, plus $10/day of impound fees will accumulate until I get this mess straightened out. Plus whatever charges for the three citations I was issued. And uh, that whole replacing the car thing. Plus trying to figure out how to get to work and to the various government agencies I need to visit — all without a driver’s license.

So, gentle readers, in one fell swoop I have rendered myself screwed. No transport, in a commuter city where I know very few people. A whole stinking mess of legal troubles that are going to be hell to figure out. And, undoubtedly, a ton of bills, which I just hadn’t budgeted for. (And p.s., how do I get to the bank to deposit my checks?)

Clearly, I was going too fast.

So here is the test. Can I slow down and make it work? Or will I keep throttling ahead, leaving pieces of broken glass and shreds of plastic in my wake, hoping that it never catches up with me?

—> LauraFries.com will do her best to not blog until after the launch of Creative Loafing’s websites May 31. We’ll see how she does.< —

—> UPDATE: 5.24.05 Well …. I had to add pictures! < —