Dented Pumpkin

/

Maybe it's because my brain is a dented pumpkin these days, especially at 10 p.m. Maybe it's because I can't see very well over the hood of my car. But yesterday evening I ran my car right over a sizable median in the parking garage. I wouldn't call it a speed bump. It was way wider, and it was clearly in place to do more than just curb my speed. I couldn't roll back over it in reverse, nor could I continue to pull my back wheels over it in forward. I looked around and saw other parking garage patrons looking completely confused and totally not interested in helping me in my predicament. My hands started to shake and I envisioned all of the Japanese tourists who would now be coming to Harvard Square and flashing their digital cameras and popping the peace sign in front of my car, the car that the dented pumpkin brain got to straddle the parking garage median. I got out of the car and said a silent prayer that God would send me a Clarence kind of Angel in the form of a parking attendant. I proceeded upstairs and met my man with wings.

I babbled something about this terrible thing that had occurred in parking spot #100, but clearly all he could see was Jaba the Hut with hair, so he followed me back to my car, put the keys in the ignition, and rolled the car right over the median like it was as easy as sneezing.

He got out of the car and, forgive a pun, but there was a pregnant pause, followed by his eyebrows raising and my eyebrows raising and my voice becoming very high THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU'RE A PROFESSIONAL SERIOUSLY THANK YOU SO MUCH. Something became clear to me that he expected a tip and something became clear to him that I had $.42 in my wallet and then something became mutually clear that I would not make out with him in exchange for him getting my car out of a rut.

2007. What a year for the green bus and me. I've crapped in it, peed in it, and now I nearly had to give up sexual favors to get it out of great parking garage peril.

On Having an Accident

/

I apologized to my professor for being late to class last night. Told him I had gotten sick, had to go home and change my outfit before I came back to class.

Well. That was kinda true.

***

Where were you at 7p.m. last night? I know where I was. I was just circling Central Square, right on time to find prime parking for my 7:30p.m. class, when suddenly, I felt some great discomfort running from my pelvis to my chest. I began to feel overheated and a bit bloated, so I adjusted my seat, unclicked my seatbelt. The discomfort worsened. It felt as though my baby was trying to blow a giant fart inside of me.

The situation was bleak. Where to pull over at Central Square? Where to find a public restroom?

I tried to burp. I tried to toot. The pressure was mounting. I heard a gurgling noise in my chest. The baby started doing Saturday Night Fever. I felt as though I was the pilot in that first scene in Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. What if I lost control of the wheel? What if my appendix burst, right here, in Central Square, where the looney per capita is, like, 3 to 1?

I finally tried the only thing that I thought might spell R-E-L-I-E-F and it wasn't Rolaids.

***

I called Lovey. "I'm coming home. I had an accident. Just calling to tell you so that you know why I don't talk to you when I get in the door."

"Poop or Pee?" he asked, because it must have been important in his brain to know this.

"Both," I said.

***

Driving home, I saw all of the teenage punks dressed up, making their trick-or-treating rounds, and I questioned for a half-second asking one of them to trade outfits so that I could go back to class.

***

There were so many cops swirling around Dorchester, keeping the streets safe on Halloween. I drove extra careful, even though I was trying to speed to get home and change. What if one of them pulled me over, I thought. "I'm sorry, Officer, but I'm 7 months pregnant and I just crapped my pants. Maybe you can let me off easy this time?"

***

At 7:30p, I reached home, showered down, ran out again and was back in class by 8p.m. just in time to talk about James Frey.