Injured Reserve
Before Tuesday, I’d never taken a sick day.* Had I realized this, my perfect attendance would have been a point of pride. What broke the streak, you ask? The avian flu? Polonium poisoning? Taco Bell? Good guesses.
What did me in was an 80-year-old man and his 14-year-old Taurus wagon. His denial of deafness also played a part, as did the fact I saw it all coming.
The incident occurred in the Ruth L. Rockwood Memorial Library parking lot on Monday night. I was almost out of my spot when I noticed reverse lights come to life behind me. A car was coming my way. I honked. He was undeterred. I hit the horn again and didn’t let go, bracing for impact. He hit the gas, then my car.
In the next few seconds, I became unhinged and started screaming. Like Michael Richards, only less racist and funnier. But I shrieked it out of my system before exiting my vehicle. The old man looked and walked like Hans Moleman from The Simpsons. “I don’t know how you could have hit me,” I said. “I was leaning on the horn the whole time.”
“That’s hard to believe. There’s nothing wrong with my hearing.” He was dead serious and sadly mistaken.
I woke up the next morning with terrible neck and back pains. My doctor attributed this to how tensed up I must have been. Since a good portion of my job includes looking either down or left, my duties could not be performed. Not Wednesday, either.
But today I’m back in business. Just needed some muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatory pills and two 5+ hour naps.
The lesson: the driver’s license this man received in 1943 probably shouldn’t be a lifetime pass.
*I did take off the day my wisdom teeth were removed. And I took a snow day last year after some trying shoveling. And I skipped plenty of lectures in college, though that was more about motivation than health.