My Near Death Experience

So yesterday one of Meg's guy friends came over after she returned home from work. He annoyed me. The first thing out of his mouth after I said my husband was in the Marines was some junk about people getting blown up. Thanks, arsehole. *rolls eyes* Whatever; I'm kind of used to that or I might have kicked him in the face. But I ignored it and went on. He drove us to a really nice part of the city for lunch; his driving sucked. Worse than sucked, whatever that could be. There is no need to be going 60MPH at any point in stop, go city traffic. But he was showing off his fancy car; apparently he's more than a little wealthy. But that kind of stuff doesn't impress me. So I was only getting more annoyed and fighting back the panic attacks due to his lousy driving skills.

We ate lunch at Johnny Rocket's, and I was too busy being annoyed to take pictures of any of this; sorry, Mom. ^_^;; Afterward he wanted to take us across the Golden Gate Bridge so I was cool with that. I needed to take some pictures of that sort of thing anyway. I figured I could tough out his attitude problem and bad driving long enough for that. And then he pulled over at a park and took a couple of hits off a joint. I shit you not, pardon my language. I made it known to Meg at that point that I was not comfortable going anywhere with him driving, but she didn't seem to care. And I didn't know where I was or how to get home without her so against my better judgement I stayed in the car and endured his awful driving with my eyes closed and a death grip on the door handle as we crossed the bridge. We stopped at one of the vantage points, and I got to take a few pictures. At that point Meg, Crystal, and I told him we wanted to go straight back to the apartment. I wasn't going to be in his car any longer than necessary.



Well, apparently this guy didn't know his way around the freeway so well after a couple of hits and took a random exit to turn around. For some reason he thought taking the ramp onto the exact same road would take him in the opposite direction. O-o;; Dumbarse. When he realized this wasn't the case, he backed up. Yes, down a freeway ramp. Granted, it was a desolate exit, and there wasn't any traffic. But there happened to be one other car...and it was behind us. It was just a scratch, but the resulting thud was enough to make me take the opportunity to get out of the stopped vehicle. The guy he hit drove away; I guess he realized it would look like he had rear-ended us and didn't want to be at fault. Whatever. I just wanted out. I sat down on a nearby rock and proceeded to have a panic attack. I was crying, hyperventilating, the whole nine-yards. And I was determined not to get back in that car whatever that meant. And to make things worse, the guy smoked another entire joint while we were stopped there after Meg told him that was one of things I was upset about. And then he was angry. Angry because he swore it was the other guy's fault we'd been dinged, and angry because we weren't getting back in car fast enough. No way in Hell was I getting back in the car with an obnoxious, high, angry arsehole like him.

We sat there for a while, Meg arguing that we had not other way back and should get in the car. Me demanding that we find another way, and Crystal just kind of stuck there in the middle of it all. She decided for my sake to start working on getting a taxi and called, but they wouldn't come get us outside of the city. They told us to find a Highway Patrol box, but there weren't any in sight. So we argued some more. At this point I was miffed that Meg and put me in this position in the first place and then insisted that I put myself right back in harm's way. A friend should never do that to another friend. I was angry, and I was scared. I was freaking out. But by some miracle, a tow truck pulled up behind us, and the guy hopped out to ask Crystal and me if we needed help. We told him the car was fine, but we didn't want to get back in it. He asked if he needed to call a patrol unit, but I did not want to deal with all that would entail so I told him it wasn't like that. The guy's driving just wasn't up to par, and I was terrified to get back in the car because he was going to drive angry. And I told him it was inducing panic attacks. So he offered to take us girls in his truck to the next exit where there was a shopping center. We could get a taxi or catch a bus there with ease. Thank God for that tow truck driver. We wish there was someway to repay him. He has no idea what he did for me. Thank you, miraculous tow truck driver, where ever you are!

Once we were at the shopping center, we went into Burger King for some comfort food. ^_^ And we asked someone at the Walgreen's about a bus. There was a stop right behind the store, and a bus back into the city would stop there. The fare was only a couple of dollars each, and we were relieved to be on mass transit rather than that guy's car anymore. At this point I was over the initial freak-out, and we were all laughing about our little adventure. We never fail to have good stories. Haha. We ended up getting off the bus at the mall where I spent more money than I should have buying cute Sanrio things. : D After that we came back to the apartment to settle down for the night. I played some Sims 2 on the laptop and talked to Ryan. He was upset about the situation I'd been put in, but he was proud of me for putting my foot down. I felt guilty, though, because I should have done more sooner. I should have gotten out of the car at the park and found a way back via a bus or taxi on my own. I've learned from that mistake. I trust my bad feelings from now on. They're usually trying to tell me something.