By: Kent McCarty
Dysfunction Junction chronicles the unfortunate strings of events that plague my life. Everything below is true, and that’s what’s scary.
December 4, 2009, was a day that I will never forget. On that day my belief that I was the world’s greatest driver was put the test, and I failed miserably.
It started out as a really good day. School was dismissed early for the football state championship, so of course the hours we did spend at school weren’t very strenuous. When I got home, my family still needed to eat lunch, so, being the perfect child that I am, I volunteered to pick up lunch before we left. After I picked up all of the food, I started on my way back home. When I got to the light at Cole Road, I decided to dig through the bag of food from Topher’s and eat one of the onion rings I got for my dad. That decision is what leaves me scratching my head because I don’t even really like onion rings. Nevertheless, I found the perfect onion ring, the light turned green, and I started on my way toward home.
What happened over the next five and a half minutes is still a little fuzzy, but after long hours of intense focus, I’ve managed to piece together most of what happened. When I left from the green light, I dropped the “onion ring of all onion rings” that I had taken great care to find a few seconds before. I did manage to find it in only a matter of seconds, but when I looked up I saw a sight that will forever haunt my dreams: a small car. Nothing is particularly frightening about small cars, until you add in that said car was stopped while I was sill plugging along at 55 mph. Unfortunately, I looked up just in time to watch my Mountaineer slam right into the back of the small Pontiac that was turning into the roadside Satsuma stand, but not in enough time to do something about it. Out of instinct I jerked the steering wheel to the left, but it was of no use. I pulled my smashed car over, took out the keys, and flung my door open. For reasons I will never understand, I threw my keys down on the ground when I got out of the car and ran over to the Satsuma salesman and the guy on the other end of the wreck. The closer I got to the victim the sicker I felt, and by the time I got within talking distance I felt as if I was going to vomit. To avoid making his day even worse by throwing up on him, I ran back to my car where I dry heaved for at least 3 minutes. When I could heave no longer and the world began to come back into focus, I realized I needed to contact my parents. The only problem was, I couldn’t find my phone, the guy I hit didn’t have one, the Satsuma guy had already left, and the customer at the stand wouldn’t let us use his. Luckily, my mom was coming home and she happened to drive by about ten minutes into the insanity. The police had long been there at that point, but of course I couldn’t string together any useful thoughts for their report. I did, however, offer 3 different police officers the French fries I had bought at Topher’s earlier. When everything was straightened out, my mom handed me my detached bumper, calling it “a souvenir,” and we were on our way.
Luckily, my car wasn’t totaled. I did, however, go without a car until Christmas Day when my parents surprised me with the car I had loved and missed dearly for nearly a month. While my car is back and better than ever, my personal view of onion rings will be tarnished forever.
