Just when things are going pretty good for you again, just when they start to look up again after you've been down and out for the count, at your lowest and just starting to get back on your feet again, it's the same ol' story: Hit by a car and dragged for three days solid.
If you want to argue technical details, sure, the car was not in motion every minute of every hour of those three days, and the complete time, I estimate, was closer to 70 hours than 72, but who's going to argue the details after you've been dragged for three days straight by an automobile? Me, that's who. Details are nature's prison guards.
It started out innocently enough, leaving work Thursday night and stepping out into moving traffic. Little could I guess, though I probably could have seen if I'd bothered to check the oncoming traffic first, there was some speeding car with a driver of drunken magnitude. I was struck, but only clipped, fortunately. Then I was dragged through the streets for three days.
Three days is not a lot of time for most things. If I performed surgery three days in a row, few would consider me a surgeon. Yet in the matter of being dragged by a car, I think three days is enough time to consider me an expert. Yes, if it's not so brazen, I now consider myself an expert on being dragged by a car. I could receive stipends to speak at universities on the topic of being dragged by a car. In fact, I may.
I'm pretty sure the drunk driver had no idea I was snagged on something, I presume the fender, of his car. At worst I would like to think maybe he caught lights flashing off the fender and assumed he was being pursued by cops, and if he hadn't been in fear of being arrested he would've stopped to see what was making all those sparks and screaming noises at the rear of his car.
As I said, he stopped for gas a few times, and I suppose he missed me, as I'm of small stature and frequently rolled up under his car. I would've tried to free myself but it was hard to stay conscious, given the extreme pain I was in as well as the lack of sleep. If I had to pick one, probably the pain was the biggest factor.
Soon I realized that it was either free myself or die. I could not endure more than another 300 hours, I'm guessing, without surrendering to the agony. Thinking quickly, mostly remembering old episodes of
MacGyver, I managed to grab ahold of the carburetor and, with the help of a lighter, fashioned a crude blowtorch. It was at this point the fender naturally gave way and I rolled off the road into a ditch.
In that ditch I lay for hours. Bloodied, broken, and very pissed off. I was found by a deaf-mute woman who threw me on her back, me being a short and uncumbersome load, and carried me to a local hospital. I found myself in Tupelo, Mississippi, in the most miserable pain I've been in all my life, as well as quite surprised I had gone so little distance in the span of three days. Even not driving constantly the drunken driver should have gotten further than that. As best I can figure the drunken driver must have turned and circled back the other way quite a number of times, or failing that, he had been driving very slow most of the journey. I say it certainly didn't feel like he was driving very slow but it does seem the most logical answer, since I'm recovered enough to be conscious this Monday morning and I'm still alive.
Is there a lesson to be learned from all this? No. None at all. The best lesson you can hope to salvage is that a so-called "walk" sign is not really a guarantee you'll get to the other side of the street. I suggest the government work on improving that right away. Until then, I have demoral.
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