Eat My Dust Lyle Oberg

I was just over at my German friends’ house, doing the yard upkeep as I do while they are out of continent, when all of a sudden I heard a thunderous bang! I immediately dropped my beer and made haste to the scene.

There I saw the results of a rear-end collision between a brand-new, purple TJ Sport Jeep and a Calgary Transit Bus. From what I could tell, the bus had slowed down to drop-off some passengers without the Jeep realizing it. I never heard any breaks, just the sound of her Jeep slamming into the back of the bus at we’ll say.. 60 clicks. Although surprisingly enough, the bus seemed unscathed; the Jeep, however, was a different story. The hood of it was now an extension of the dashboard, the car-horn was stuck on (which turned out to be a useful attention grabber,) and fluid spewed from the engine and radiator, forming a sludgy green lake along the curbside.

Fearing for my life (having seen far too many movies to know that vehicles almost always explode upon impact or shortly thereafter,) I remained on the opposite curb, and allowed the heroic and mechanically inclined bus passengers to assist the young Jeepist from her air-bag-entangled wreckage. I did, however, manage to find a way to positively contribute to the situation, by directing the oncoming traffic through the one remaining lane until the emergency response arrived.

You should have seen it; I was amazing! I was confident, authoritative, and animated (which are all important assets to have in an emergency situation, because the last thing you need is some uncertain "pussy-man" controlling the show.) And, the first responding officer was so thankful of my contribution she even wanted me to stick around so that they could get my name and recommend me for some kind of medal of distinction or whatever, but I refused. You see, I’m a very modest person; I’m not very good a receiving praise, and I never toot my own horn. Hell, that’s probably one of my best qualities, but I digress...

It all happened down on Northmount Drive, which is a small, two-lane, urban, residential street that does more than its fair-share to move traffic East-West across North-Central Calgary. It spans almost 40 city blocks, and adjoins to 13 city schools. It can be a treacherously slow crawl at some hours of the day, especially when school-buses line the margins as they wait for their cargo.

As for the girl in the Jeep, she’ll be ok I reckon. A little whiplash maybe, to go along with the sorrow over her undoubtably written-off Jeep. She’ll be without the option of suing Calgary Transit; at least, I’ve never heard of anyone successfully doing so.

But, I can tell you one thing she can thank God about. She can thank God that it was a regular bus, with regular grown-up adults on it. Because, had it been one of those other buses, you know, the ones that carry children to-and-from school, she’d be fucked! And I don’t use the term lightly. Fucked!

Although I am not an expert in the insurance business, I’m pretty confident she’d be facing a torrential shit-storm by now (since I’ve already dropped the F-bomb, twice, I figure everything goes.) Furthermore, I suspect those children would have been just a little slower to her aide than the burly Samaritans who rescued her today. Just a little. I would have still directed the traffic, so no difference there. But she’d be fucked.