 |
| Who backs up on a Parkway entrance ramp?! AND WITHOUT LOOKING?! |
It's about 5:30 a.m. and I'm heading toward the newsroom for work. I come to the Parkway entrance ramp and am stopped at a light.
A rookie-looking officer is doing a poor job of blocking the entrance ramp as a tow truck hauls away a vehicle that had somehow become lodged in a tree.
At this point, it's not snowing, but the air is thick and cloudy, portending a snow-storm.
A woman in a minivan (go fig, a mini-vanner) is getting yelled at by the cop because she was trying to scoot around his blockade by driving on the grassy shoulder.
"Hey you can't go this way," he's yelling at her, "You see I have this blocked off." The officer is outside his vehicle and he's approaching the minivan. He gets to her window knocks on it and says, "Get out of here, back up."
Shit, I'm thinking, because I'm right behind her, and if she backs up....
Her reverse lights go on, and before I can even get my car in the reverse gear to avoid her, she revs the engine and SMACK! backs up right into my headlight as the officer is yelling "Hey Hey Hey!". The impact makes a gut-wrenching crunch that I just know is going to cost somewhere around $900 to fix.
I heard the officer, "Now look what you did," he says to the minivan driver, "You hit her."
"What the fuck!" I yelled, punching my horn even though it's far too late for that kind of nonsense.
I flicked my 4-way flashers on and made a point to slam my door angrily when I got out to inspect the damage. My headlight was cracked and the bumper was puckered under.
"You didn't even look behind you!" I yelled at the lady who was holding her head with embarrassment. She kept saying "I'm sorry, I didn't even see you there, I'm sorry."
"I love this car," I told her, glaring. I wanted to grab the ice scraper out of my trunk and wail on her beat-up minivan just to make us even, but the officer was still there and I figured he'd cuff me and then I'd be really really late for work.
"Who backs up on the Parkway entrance ramp!" I yelled at her instead.
"Everyone just calm down," said the officer, "Go get parked over there and wait for me. Have your documents ready."
Whoops, I'm thinking... I never know where my license is and I always have an outdated insurance card. Also, I'm like 80 percent sure that there's a warrant issued for my arrest in Philadelphia, not that I think a NJ officer has access to that kind of information, but who knows.
Anyway, so I gather up my outdated insurance card, my duplicate license and my valid registration (woo hoo! It's valid!)
I give it to the officer, who examines the damage to my car with a flashlight. He takes about 45 minutes to fill out the police report, then tells the minivan driver that she can leave.
Then he pulls his car next to mine and motions for me to roll down my window. I do and he asks me, "Did you give me your documents?"
"Yes."
"Did I give them back to you?" he asked me.
"No you did not give them back to me," I said.
"I remember giving them back to you," he said, pausing. "Well then I'm just going to have to take your information verbally, because I don't have them."
Worse morning ever, I'm thinking.
I spell out my complicated last name, and because I don't know that fancy phonetic alphabet I find myself spouting off nonsense like, "V as in Victory-is-mine, U as in ... uh, as in unicorn... K as in Kansas, S as in Starlight, A as in Asbury, N as in Nostradamus, I as in Iraq, C as in Caboodle!" all as the officer is nodding his head and calmly recording the letters as if what I'm saying isn't completely idiotic.
I have my license number memorized so I rattle that number off and I tell him I have liberty mutual auto insurance but that's the best I can do because I have no idea what my policy number is. "That's the one bill I'm always on time with because it's directly taken out of my checking account," I told him.
He's recording my info, then he says, "I'm all done here," and passes me an information pamphlet explaining how I can pay $6 for a copy of the police report.
"Do you think we can search your car to see if my documents are in there?" I asked, thinking that it was ironic for me to be asking an officer if we could search his car.
"I guess," he says and I could tell that he just wanted to get the hell out of there and be done with me.
He gets out of his car and so do I. He opens his passenger seat and I see that his patrol car is packed full of junk. He pulls out a sweatshirt, a gym bag, a uniform, a utility belt a gun that looks like an assault rifle, a box full of papers, a coffee cup and I'm supervising the whole time because I've decided that I'm not leaving without my license. What if I wanted to go to a bar later?
"Maybe it's under the seat," I tell him once the car's contents have been emptied.
He pushes the seat back and runs his hand along the bottom. "Got something," he said.
It was my plastic envelope with all my documents in it.
Now it's almost 7 a.m. and I'm just heading to work.
I get to the newsroom and the morning weather forecast says we're getting 10 to 16 inches of snow and it's expected to start coming down around 3 p.m.
That's great, I'm thinking, because I'll be out of here and home by then.
Boy was I wrong....
*** Stay tuned for Boxing Day Blizzard Part II: The blizzard begins, and I'm in the newsroom. I try to leave the building and get stuck in the parking lot, marking the beginning of my adventurous 3-day stranding at the newsroom where I put myself to work, covering the blizzard.