Tired

PG and I traded cars one day last week so he could take my car in to get winter tires installed. I’ve never bought winter tires in my entire driving career – this is Vancouver, after all, and it mostly rains here in the winter and doesn’t get super-cold.

Except last year. We had enough snow last year to cover our quota for about fifty years, and it lasted longer than our snow here has ever lasted. And there I was, in my brand new car with my all-season tires, stranded at home because I couldn’t get out of my driveway. And if I could have gotten out, I couldn’t have driven too far because we have no idea how to clear roads here. Oh, the excuse was that it was snowing so much that they just couldn’t keep up, but I’m not sure I believe that. Cities like Toronto or Montréal, which regularly have copious amounts of snow, seem to keep up fairly well. Those cities don’t shut down in the snow. But Vancouver? Wah, there’s snow, let’s all go hide under the covers!

But anyway, I don’t ever want to go through another winter like that – me and the other million people who live here. We’re all frantically buying and installing winter tires this year. It can be hard to get the tires you want, so many people are purchasing them. The first set of tires that PG ordered for me were sold to somebody else before they even were delivered to the shop, so he had to go on to Plan B. Fortunately, he is quite knowledgeable about tires, and loves doing the research and phonecalls to track down the best deal, so at least I had somebody with the time and expertise to do that for me.

The big issue, apparently, was that the all-season tires that came with the car are run-flats and the winter tires I ended up buying are not. When one of them is punctured or flat, run-flats can be driven for about another 100 km, at a reduced speed (whatever THAT means – is it 50 km/h? Reports I’ve read vary.) to safely get somewhere to get the tire replaced (most likely) or repaired (occasionally). This means that my car did not come with a spare tire or a jack. This means that now that I’m running regular tires, I still have no spare or jack.

The tire dealer was quite worried about this. PG reassured the poor man that I have both BMW Assist and BCAA, both of which can come to my rescue if ever I have a flat tire. And really, I’ve only ever had a flat tire twice in my whole life: once was from hitting a pothole in the dark in a construction zone and the other was when I was forced into the curb by the car beside me deciding to change lanes without checking to see if another car was already there. So I think the odds are pretty good that I’ll be just fine for the five or so months that I’ll be driving on my new winter tires.

It better snow like crazy this winter. I didn’t spend all that money for nothing, ya know!

Case closed

Do you recall that car crash I had in the summer of 2008? The one where the driver of the other car involved decided to sue me for damages back last February?

Since receiving that rather disturbing sheaf of papers, I have only spoken once to the lawyer that my insurance company assigned to the case. I had just wanted to ask him a couple of questions about those papers, including were they still legal if my address was typed wrongly all over them (answer: yes). I also told him my side of the story, giving him additional details, all of which I wrote about in that post last February.

I have not been contacted since.

Till today.

There was an envelope from my lawyer in the mail today. I couldn’t help it, my heart started to pound and my hands started to shake. I didn’t want to open it up. I was scared of what it might contain. I told myself that it was quite likely just an update on the case, that it surely wasn’t anything awful, because if it was, my lawyer would have phoned me. Certainly that would be how legal cases worked.

Wouldn’t it?

Like an idiot, I sat there holding the envelope in my trembling hands for several more minutes before I finally took a deep breath and opened it. As I did, I mentally scolded myself for being such a drama queen.

Inside was one sheet of paper with very little typing on it. It very briefly informed me that the lawsuit had “settled”. The word “settled” was in bold. My participation in the case was now “concluded”. The word “concluded” was not in bold.

I breathed deeply again. It’s over, and pretty painlessly, really.

But now I’m wondering what that jackass ended up getting as his settlement. And yes, the word “jackass” is in bold.

Who ya gonna call?

I was driving home from work today, minding my own business. I’d just turned onto a busy four-lane road that leads up a hill to a traffic light, where I then turn left down my own street and from there, into my driveway.

I heard the wail of a siren. (Apparently I didn’t have my stereo cranked too loudly this time. That has happened in the past.) I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw the lights of an approaching ambulance.

I was in a line-up of four vehicles, in the left lane. I know you’re supposed to move to the right and stop while the ambulance passes, but there were more vehicles in the right lane, so I really had nowhere to go. I chose to stop right where I was.

The two cars ahead of me did the same thing. As the ambulance came closer, the three of us didn’t move. But the white SUV directly behind me did.

The joker in the driver’s seat decided to drift over into the right lane, regardless of the what the cars already there were doing. Fortunately, they had all pulled over to the far right, beside the curb, and were waiting motionless, just like it says to do in the driver’s manual.

But our friend in the white SUV had obviously never read a driver’s manual. This brainiac kept on driving, slowly, in the right lane, with the ambulance coming up fast to the rear. The SUV finally rolled to a stop pretty much in the middle of an intersection, and the ambulance threaded its way around it. The ambulance returned to the lane which the SUV was now blocking, and when it picked up speed, so did the SUV, right on its tail. In this manner, the SUV passed everybody who was correctly stopped either in the left lane or on the right side of the road.

The rest of us watched this twit zoom up the road, as if in pursuit of the ambulance. Then we started moving again up the hill, sedately.

I just don’t understand how some people think that their time is so much more valuable than that of paramedics in an ambulance trying to get to a medical emergency as quickly as possible. In a perfect world, these would be the people who one day have their own medical emergency, but the ambulance cannot get there quickly enough due to incompetent drivers blocking their progress.

But that probably won’t happen.

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Pinklea’s political rant (to be read at your own risk):

The paramedics here in BC are currently on strike and have been since April 1. The thing is, they are an essential service, and as such, the public hasn’t seen as much disruption to their life as might be expected if, for example, grocery store employees were on strike. People make that 911 call, and an ambulance still shows up. The government doesn’t seem to want to negotiate better ambulance service for all, as well as better working conditions and a fair wage increase for these hard-working people. I don’t know any of the details about what the paramedics are asking for or what the government is offering or even if they are going to mediation soon, but I do think that a six-month strike is ridiculous (hello, OC Transpo?). Surely there is some room for compromise before people start to die at an alarming rate. Surely, if they are deemed an essential service, the government can treat them like one, with updated and properly tested equipment, sane working hours and conditions, and wages that match the importance of their work.

There. Political statement over. Back to our regular programming.

Look both ways

About a year ago, I had a confrontation with the driver of the car that almost knocked me down as I was crossing the street. With the green light. With the pedestrian signal in my favour. In a crosswalk. In broad daylight.

I was SO ANGRY! That cow came so close to me before screeching to a halt that I had time to consider where it would hurt the least when her bumper hit me, and to make my decision to jump up right before impact because I thought that way she wouldn’t run me over, that I would roll up over the hood of the car (and possibly smash my head into the windshield. But I didn’t have enough time to consider that possibility, apparently.).

Anyway, she stopped a scant 20 or 30 centimetres from me, and as I came back down from jumping, I slammed my two hands forcefully on the hood of her car. Heart pounding, I glared at the stupid woman.

She rolled down her window. “Sorry.”

Sorry. That’s it? She didn’t sound at all sorry. I stayed right in front of her car and started screaming at her.

“Sorry?! That doesn’t quite cut it! You just about fucking KILLED me, you idiot! How did you ever get your license?!”

She stared at me balefully. “I didn’t see you. Sorry.” Deadpan.

“No kidding you didn’t see me! I guess you didn’t see the pedestrian light or the crosswalk either, did you!”

By this time, cars were backing up behind her. People in cars and on the street were staring. I stayed in front of her and kept shouting. I just couldn’t believe that she expressed so little remorse. I couldn’t believe that I of all people had come so very close to being hit by a car, a car driven by someone who seemed to be that stupid that she didn’t realize the gravity of what she had almost done.

The light changed. People started honking. I gave her one last “You’re a moron!” and dashed to the median in the middle of the road. She continued on her merry way, followed by the vehicles that had been stopped behind her. When the road was clear again, I scurried to the opposite side and stood there for a few minutes to catch my breath before heading up the hill and continuing home myself.

I was upset about that for a long time, mainly because of her non-reaction, not really because I almost got smacked by a car. If it had been me, I told myself, I would have been absolutely guilt-ridden and anguish-filled, and I would have been shaking for a week.

Then today, driving home, I was at a busy intersection waiting to turn left. There was a gap in the oncoming traffic. I started to go. And there was a woman walking in the crosswalk. And I didn’t see her right away. I did stop safely though, albeit a bit more suddenly than I would have liked, and she stopped too. She gave me a look, I put both my hands up and mouthed, “I’m sorry!”, and she finished crossing the street safely without giving me another glance.

Some people are just so zen. I, on the other hand, trembled almost all the rest of the way home.

At least he makes me laugh

Have I ever mentioned how much Porsche Guy loves his Porsche? No? Well, he does. He spends more quality time with that car than he does with me. (But I’m okay with that, because I can then spend that time with my BMW. We are car enthusiasts, after all.)

PG has a track day coming up in a few weeks. This is where he spends an exorbitant amount of money to spend the day at a race track with twenty or thirty other like-minded people, learning motor racing techniques from pros. Safety is, of course, paramount, and everybody must have an approved helmet and their car must pass technical inspection before they are allowed out on the track. There is classroom instruction prior to track instruction, and they must attain a certain standard of competence before moving up to the next level. It’s all very organized and professional, and PG has attended – and loved! – a number of these days over the past couple of years.

Now, back to the mandatory technical inspection. PG does virtually all his own car maintenance and repairs, and if you’ve been following this blog for a while, you may remember that he broke the gear shift on his car last winter. He’s now decided that he’d better replace it properly, since the car will never be permitted on the race track in its present state. There are a few other things that need to be tweaked or replaced on the car as well, so PG has ordered up parts and has been spending the majority of his free time working on all of that recently.

One of the things that needs to be fixed is the car’s emergency brake. PG hasn’t yet gotten around to that, so he’s been placing a chunk of wood behind the tire whenever he parks on an incline. The spot where he works on his car is a very gentle slope, so, of course he never forgets that little chunk of wood.

But this particular day, for some reason (probably because his “chunk” of wood is actually a little 2 x 4), the car started to roll down the slope. As I said, it’s a small slope, but the car rolled slowly over the wood. PG incredulously watched it begin to pick up speed, then instinct kicked in. He grabbed the back bumper. The car kept moving, pulling him with it. Quickly, so as to avoid being dragged down to the end of the alley, he moved on to Plan B. This involved him running alongside the rolling car, opening up the driver’s side door, leaping in, and applying the brakes.

He did it. He stopped the car a couple of metres from a wall.

He calmed down, brought the car back to its spot, anchored it more securely (bigger chunk of wood), and got to work under the hood. Then he got the urge to pee. I guess that’s what happens after you save your car from smashing into a wall. And here is where I need to add that PG usually wears latex gloves when working on a car, and because they’re necessarily tight and a bit difficult to put on and take off, he doesn’t like to remove them just to go to the bathroom (unless they’re really dirty, I hope!). So, as he made his way to the bathroom, he started to unzip his fly. Which wouldn’t unzip. Which made him have to pee even more. Which made him even more desperate to unzip. He finally realized that the latex glove had gotten caught in the zipper. He wiggled his hand out of the glove, somehow worked the zipper down, and managed to relieve himself, glove hanging from his fly. He zipped back up, glove still hanging there. I think he ended up having to cut the glove out of his fly.

And this is, apparently, the man of my dreams.