Once upon a time...Don't ignore the signs
Once upon a time, in late 2001 I was 8 and a half months pregnant. We were moving from our tiny one room apartment to make room for our new addition. My mother drove the station wagon with the last load to our new house. We were hauling primarily plants and breakables. Driving down the road we were talking about random stupid shit. Soon we came to the on ramp for the bypass to the other side of town.
There was a really big mail carrier truck in front of us ready to take the turn. He just sat there so long that we almost went around him. Down the one way, one lane road we go. We followed the mail truck at a normal safe following distance. General traffic flowed along in the opposite direction on the other side of the barrier.
All of a sudden my mom jerked the wheel. I looked up as our station wagon followed the mail truck off into the grass on the side of the road. Everything happened so fast I look back on it in sections to figure it all out. Headlights shown down the road at us. A small red car traveling at incredible speed came plowing right at us. He swerved at the cement divider, then grossly over corrected. He smashed into the back of the mail truck-crashed into the rear wheel hub. Contact with the rubber of the dual rear tires slingshotted him miraculously right around us! He hit the divider on his spin around and the vehicle finally came to a stop.
At that moment my mom became a superhero. She flew out of the car rushing over to the other vehicle. By the time I had barely rounded the back of the car I see my mom ripping the drivers door open. It was caved in from impact with the cement barrier. I saw white hair slumped on the steering wheel. She grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him to safety along side the back of our car. He reeked of booze and his head kept loling side to side. He was speaking in English and Italian asking for his daughter.
I'm not sure how much time has lapsed at this point. The police finally showed up along with fire and ambulance. A screaming woman came moving fast hoping the cement from the other side of the road. It was the drunk man's daughter. She was yelling at him in Italian. She thanked my mom hugging her and crying. She cursed her father. Apparently he didn't even have his license anymore. He lived in his own home but with the assistance of a nurse. The car was hers. He stole it, went bar hoping where he got so shit faced he drove the wrong way down a one way street!
When we pulled in the driveway everyone was standing around talking. My mom jumped out of the car, grabbed my baby brother by the shoulders and says " Give me some booze I know you got some!" It was hilarious because my mom doesn't drink. Once several years earlier my mom was sick. When my dad ran out to get cigarettes he bought her a couple of cinnamon schnaps for her cough as a kind of joke. She only drank one and she couldn't walk straight, she slurred her words as she told me to get my sister off the bus because she was drunk. So for her to demand alcohol was both shocking and funny. My brother reached into his glove box, before he even straightened back up she whipped the bottle out of his hands and took a big swig. She didn't cough, choke or lose her breath. It really is good for a shock apparently like in the movies.
THE END