Not Dead
i was just confused as to why you walk out of a car wreck and your biggest concern is missing my fake birthday
Last Monday the top item on my to-do list was to give my friend Rob a call for his fake birthday. Then I got distracted.
I’d borrowed a car for a weekend trip to Madison and was returning on Monday, March 19. I was in the right lane of I-90 when a pickup in the left tried to lane-change into me in his haste to cut around the guy ahead of him. When I braked to avoid a collision, I spun out on the wet pavement and ground backwards to a halt along the crash barrier in the median. The back bumper disintegrated, the side of the car was scraped deeply enough to tear off a door handle, the front bumper was hanging half off.
With luck, and many thanks to automotive and highway engineers, I was uninjured. (The pickup drove off, of course.) The rest of my day was taken up with a police report, insurance report, damage estimates, and an early bedtime. All the usual fallout of a car crash.
The next morning I was trading email with Rob and I told him the whole story of the crash, ending with:
Oh, which is all a long, elaborate excuse for saying I’m sorry I missed your birthday yesterday, Rob. Happy belated!
… thank you?
Wasn’t it March 19 what you moved it to like 20 years ago because you were sick of having a birthday up against Christmas? I thought it was 3/19 and I’m sure it was some lead singer’s birthday…
guitar player. it was Pete Townshend from The Who
you got the date right. i was just confused as to why you walk out of a car wreck and your biggest concern is missing my fake birthday
I’ve been chewing on this question, but the answer is easy: I’m really happy with where I am and what I’m doing with my life. The crash hasn’t made me think “Oh no, I’m wasting my life! I need to quit my job and work on NearbyGamers full-time! Or quit NearbyGamers and work 90-hour weeks! Or join a nunnery! Or win a triathlon!”
I wanted to get right back to what I was doing. I’ve thought deliberately about what kind of life I want, and I’m living it. And I can’t think of a better way to celebrate being alive than to enjoy a fond old joke with a friend.
Want more? I'm not as good at forgetting to update @pushcx on Twitter.
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