It's not me. It's you.

the out of control, stolen tractor-trailer that almost hit me.

I have a really useful voice in my head that warns me when extremely bad things are about to happen. In high school it saved me from flying around a corner in my Buick into six deer that were in the road. I was driving late at night and something told me that I had to slow down drastically at a curve on a road where I routinely drove well over the speed limit, because I was 16 and dumb. I hit my brakes, went around the curb at like 15 miles an hour and had just enough time in the dark and fog to stop completely before six deer finished crossing the road.

Last night, this same premonition may have saved me from being hit by an out of control, stolen tractor-trailer. Because apparently those show up on my front porch now.
I walked outside last night at 11:30 to meet Emily as she returned from work to do some serious dumpster diving and I had to cross the non-busy part of the road in front of our house. (Our road makes a gentle right off of the main road, Meeker, forming a giant asphalt triangle. We're adjacent to where the main road splits, a gas station is on the opposite. The main road is the hypotenuse. I'd draw a picture, but I'd rather use trigonometry.) The same voice in my head told me that something bad was about to happen and I neededto be really careful crossing the street, so I checked the road with extra scrutiny before quickly crossing the street and heading to the gas station to walk and meet my sister. Moments later, I heard several loud crashes and turned around to see a giant tractor-trailer jump the curb in front of my house, crash through our street sign, shoot across the street I had had a bad premonition about crossing moments earlier, and slow down slightly before hitting a large truck parked at the gas station.
A fire hydrant was shooting water and five or so people were rushing over. I couldn't see the driver, so another man and I rushed to open the door of the truck, worried someone had collapsed, and instead found it completely empty. I called the police, and they took a solid 30 minutes to arrive. Because apparently "empty tractor-trailer crashing through my neighborhood" does not actually qualify as an emergency. The owner of the truck arrived, out of breath, in asking for a cell phone. This whole string of events began when he dropped his cell phone and lost the little chip. He had to stop at a (different) gas station about 4 blocks down the road to run inside and get change to call his wife, he turned around and his truck had been stolen. He explained this to me and I said, "So you broke your phone . . . and as a result thishappens? That sucks." Because I have never been good at sympathy.
He borrowed my cell phone and argued with his wife, who apparently thought the whole thing was a long ruse to explain why he hadn't called earlier.
I think the truck-stealer saw that he was headed toward a gas station, pulled the emergency brake and jumped out of the truck. He obviously didn't know how to drive stick, and since he was headed almost directly towards two gas pumps (And me! thank you very much, asshole!) in a truck he couldn't control, I guess he just jumped and ran. I didn't see him. The fire department eventually came on accident. There was a false alarm at the building next to ours, and as they were leaving that they asked me if something had happened. (All members ofthe FDNY, btw, are super cute.) Eventually the police came, I gave my statement that the owner of the truck was not driving, and Emily and I were able to continue on our dumpster diving quest. (4 supercute wooden chairs from the elementary school around the corner!) This morning the street sign had been cleared, a traffic cone set over the broken hydrant, and both trucks were gone. All that was left was me and some broken glass, standing on the corner with a renewed fear of tractor-trailers. Because this is actually the second time I have been nearly killed by one of the damn things.

posted by k. @ 6:20 PM