Wednesday, November 29, 2006
it'll probably end with "oops", but i hope it doesn't

Ramblings.

With all the crazy snow and ice action happening around the Seattle area lately, I think I've been strangely unfazed by it all... at least until this past night. I had my own personal, ridiculous episode of "The Fast Moderately Quick and the Furious Partially-Zombified: Tokyo Renton Drift."

Because I don't want to go into the lengthy explanation of the details, it's probably best to summarize what happened in a series of mistakes:

  1. I decided to go out after work for hot pot at the usual Sichuanese joint with the guys from our small group instead of going straight home like a normal person who's sick with a cold should.

  2. I, being a man who is filled with love for the cuisine of the motherland, ate a lot of food over hotpot, especially tofu and dumplings, which induced a food coma. (it was all-you-can-eat, and you gotta take advantage)

  3. I embark on the ride home in the dark with icy roads, sick & groggy with food coma, rolling in a 16-year old frontwheel drive car that didn't put on its chains, and driving on the backroads because I though the freeways would be filled with crazier people than me.

  4. About 15 minutes away from home, I'm making a right hand turn on a green light, when I feel the entire rear of my car drifting outward in a continuous motion to my left, crossing lanes as I'm entering the turn. As my hands clutch the wheel, my eyes looking ahead at oncoming traffic, I instinctively try and turn to correct the motion. My stupified self, without a scream or a shout, blinks, and thinks, "Is this the moment I stupidly crash and die?" And only one word escaped my lips:

    "Oops."

    In the mere microseconds while I'm thinking the above thought, three ironic facts occur to me:

    • Irony 1.
      I'm about to die less than 5 minutes away from the Group Health clinic I used go to as a child.

    • Irony 2.
      I'm about to die less than 5 minutes away from the cemetery where my father is buried.

    • Irony 3.
      I'm about to die less than a few weeks before I'm supposed to get married.


But obviously, I don't die.

By a miraculous exact steering correction and the completely unmerited grace of God, I didn't overcompensate or undercompensate, I merely drifted a few lanes before regaining traction and avoiding colliding with any of the other cars coming at me. My heart didn't skip a beat and I just kept on driving. Maybe the cold weather made me calm and numb to the craziness of it all.

...

Strangely enough, it now occurs to me that the mysterious flat tire that I had several weeks in October may have just saved my life. If not for that flat tire, I would have never replaced my front tires... and if not for my new front tires, I might not have been able to get the traction I needed to power my way into controlling my drift.

Maybe I've been watching too much Heroes (just started last week), but the imaginative side of me wonders if a future person traveled back in time via mutant teleportation that bends space and time to purposely slash my tire in order to save my life from ending in a car crash.

Or maybe my mind dreams up such fantastical explanations because part of me has trouble fathoming a divine miracle saving my life... is there something in my life worth saving that it merits a strange miracle of potentially connected circumstances?

...

For some reason, part of me has always felt my life already dangles on a shortened thread. I suppose that's why everything that happened after college was so difficult for me to endure; I felt like the plans I had made to maximize the shortness of the time had been smashed and that my quarter-life crisis was in actually my mid-life crisis. But I know it's silly for me to presume how long or short my life will be. Only God knows.

Regardless, I'm thankfully that for now, that it's been preserved... I think I'd be ashamed even in death if I died with an "oops" rather than something more honorable and glorious like, "Live on without me" or "I did it for you" or "Freeeeeeeeeeedom...". Really.

  |


Comments:
Dang...glad you're still alive.

Now, just make sure you don't go to any crazy gentlemen's club on your bachelor party and get pumped full of lead by the cops.
 
knock on wood, dude.

or maybe your mind is dreaming up fantastical explanations b/c wouldnt it be pretty crazy if ppl could actually develop those kinds of powers down the line...
 
I slashed your tire. You are welcome.
 
thx guys.

and big ups, Tribal "Hiro" One.
 
when God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, did God know whether Abraham would give him up or not? God knew. Abraham did not.
 
heh>
good point.
 
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in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33

the facts.
name. Gar AKA "that Chinese guy" "Sleepy.McSleeping"
ethnicity/nationality. Chinese/American, 4th gen.
location. Sea-Town, WA, USA Kawanishi, JAPAN
occupation. less-cynical poor grad student
age. younger than you think, older than you know

 



 

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(myname) @ gmail.com

 

 

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