i saved two lives tonight

[lazygood4nothinbum]

how cool is that? i was meeting family for dinner at 6 and left just enough time to get to the nearby mall to return shoes that squeak.

the place is pretty busy for a sunday night. a vw is standing still in the service drive, facing north in a southbound lane. i'm heading south using the lane she left available. i'm driving very slow as there are lots of cars and people about.

an older couple, i mean older, both hunched over, the guy with a cane, leaning on each other as they crossed the street in the crosswalk just behind the vw. as i'm pulling up to this scene, looking at the vw on the wrong side of the street, she starts to back up her car with a bit of speed.

i frantically honk my horn in short beeps beep beep beep beep beep. she stops her car just short of running over the elderly couple. they lose their balance and are leaning on the vw for support and gathering themselves.

i pull up to see that they are all ok. the woman in the vw is now leaning out of her car, upset as if the elderly couple had done something wrong. i stop my car alongside hers, she looks at me. i said "you are not even on the right side of the street." this ditz has no idea how lucky she was that i happened along at that moment.

i'm driving to find a parking spot amazed at the timing of it all. that's all it was, timing. hadn't i left in time to get to the store before dinner, hadn't i stopped for gas, hadn't i set the cruise control on 80 mph on i-95. hadn't i made just the right lights and been stopped by just the right lights. hadn't i turned the corner at the mall to see at that moment what i saw, to honk my horn to give warning, there would have been two dead old shoppers and a pretty girl in jail. wow.

life never ceases to intrigue me.

[bssc]

Obvious you are one of their guardian angels.

[samclem]

That's something! Congratulations.
It's lucky the ditz even heard your horn. Horns are so wimpy today, and most cars are so tight that not much noise gets in. Plus, the worst drivers either have the radio on very loud or are on the phone. Clueless drivers can pretty much cruise all day oblivious to the mahem they cause.

[figner]

Glad you were there at the right time to make a difference. Seems like there should be a word for that feeling: the one where you marvel at how you wound up at this particular moment because of circumstances lining up just so.

[lazygood4nothinbum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by figner Glad you were there at the right time to make a difference. Seems like there should be a word for that feeling: the one where you marvel at how you wound up at this particular moment because of circumstances lining up just so.

i think the word is awe but my word for it is wow. if i had thought up on my own such a fictional situation i would think that my reaction to the ditz would have been nothing but anger at her stupidity. but the reality left me first with immediate relief that i wasn't helping to scrape up two frail people who would not have survived even being hit never mind run over. and second with this feeling that i guess maybe you are right, maybe i don't have a word for it. my eyes were wide open, i wasn't angry, i couldn't smile all i could think of was time. wow.

Quote:

Originally Posted by samclem That's something! Congratulations. It's lucky the ditz even heard your horn. Horns are so wimpy today, and most cars are so tight that not much noise gets in. Plus, the worst drivers either have the radio on very loud or are on the phone. Clueless drivers can pretty much cruise all day oblivious to the mahem they cause.

it is amazing how quick the mind can be when required. i actually recall myself thinking that if i laid on the horn it might just blend in with whatever was playing in the background of the ditz's brain and so i needed to do rapid beeps instead of one long beeeep. it struck me immediately that this was how to call warning. also fortunately, along with a powerful engine the stang has a powerful horn. it worked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bssc Obvious you are one of their guardian angels.

thanx but that's the thing, it wasn't me. it was just time. though at dinner my uncle suggested that i'd finally found my calling in life. to drive around mall parking lots, saving people.

[Peaceful_Warrior]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazygood4nothinbum life never ceases to intrigue me.

Do you think this situation was just coincidence, or were you 'supposed' to be there at that point in time?

[JPatrick]

Way to go goodfornuttin.
Now as I recall, in some cultures an incident like this would make you their guardian. Have they moved in yet?

[loosechickens]

Well....now you've surely lost any sense of accuracy in calling yourself a good for nothing bum.

Isn't it neat when something like that happens? And you know that a few seconds one way or the other, and you wouldn't have been there to hit that cosmic pinball?

Good for you, you "good for something, certainly, bum"....

LooseChickens

[shoe]

Lazy, me thinks you should lose the "goodfornuthin" in your moniker. Keep the "bum" though!

[Non sequitur]

Good job. You should feel good about having been able to do something like that. Don’t diminish the importance of your acting appropriately. There are lots of people who would have failed to do what seems to you to have been such a simple thing.

Your analysis of the event reminds me that one of my best friends and I are sometimes confronted with circumstances that cause us to pronounce that…

“Timing IS everything”.

[dex]

now are you a lazygood4somenothinbum

[BUM]

dex, you beat me to the punch line! Way to go LGNB!

[lazygood4nothinbum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BUM dex, you beat me to the punch line! Way to go LGNB!

Quote:

Originally Posted by dex now are you a lazygood4somenothinbum

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoe Lazy, me thinks you should lose the "goodfornuthin" in your moniker. Keep the "bum" though!

aw shucks, tanx all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by loosechickens Well....now you've surely lost any sense of accuracy in calling yourself a good for nothing bum.

nah, still good4nothin. just, um, tooting my own horn.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Non sequitur Good job. You should feel good about having been able to do something like that. Don’t diminish the importance of your acting appropriately. There are lots of people who would have failed to do what seems to you to have been such a simple thing.

i must admit that for the first few hours after it did feel pretty good, almost even a privilege. but on reflection i wonder if being a hero (not that this ranks that--i just knew that i had to do something and there wasn't a whole lot of available options) but if heroic acts are nothing more than panic that happens to work out ok.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JPatrick Way to go goodfornuttin. Now as I recall, in some cultures an incident like this would make you their guardian. Have they moved in yet?

i'm not sure but think it might be the japanese who have said that you are responsible for the life you save. fortunately the couple was very old so even if they got my license plate number i wouldn't have to house them for long. as to the pretty young woman i kept out of jail, i’m pretty sure the str8 guys here will have more fun imagining guardianship there, as that is completely lost on me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peaceful_Warrior Do you think this situation was just coincidence, or were you 'supposed' to be there at that point in time?

is it a coincidence that i was there because i was there? i think i was just there because if i wasn’t there then i wouldn't have been there. (either way, there was plenty of there there. where's gerty stein when you need her?) but how could or why would i affix any special meaning to any of that? i was supposed to be there because i was shoe shopping, not life saving. with that in mind was it cosmic coincidence or mere convenience? i was driving 80 mph to get to the store before they closed. i didn't want to spend a lot of time between dropping off shoes and getting to dinner so i was cutting it all rather close. not to be perverted or jaded but it is absolutely funny to me that i prevented these people from getting run over. is there meaning to be found here or is it simply that in life there can be such wonderfully odd humor.

for me a bird does not mean freedom, does not represent flight. that a bird flies is enough for me. that these people walked away unharmed is enough for me. that i got to the shoe store and dinner on time is enough for me. i don't have to assign meaning to life and i don't have to look for meaning in life because life is meaning, just like a bird flies. i don’t have to look for flight in a bird. i don’t have to use my imagination to add a thing to what i see in life because life for me is extraordinary all on its own.

[bright eyed]

congrats lazy!

that is excellent - perhaps it means your hard wiring in your brain is wired for good and not evil you didn't have to think about it - your instinct was to help and do the best you could to stop the ditz! that can be a campaign, stop the ditz's?! rather disturbing she wasn't appalled at her own potential harm?

i do think we can all find those moment's where for no good reason, you stomp on your brake, look a certain direction and there is the thing you spent hours looking for the other day in plain view, etc.

have had similar experiences, where i see an accident that just happened on the freeway (happens a lot here in cali) and if i had left when i was supposed to, etc. i would have been me in the mangled steel mess...even worse me and the kids!

just put the karma coins in the bank and treat yourself...

[Bram]

Excellent that you responded
Excellent that she responded

It would have been horrible to have witnessed otherwise

[VoyT]

Bless you bum .. ya did good!

[megacorp-firee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazygood4nothinbum life never ceases to intrigue me.

Good for you G4N, ... good Karma...

OTOH, a true story ... my DWs cousin, a college student, was walking from the lab one night, at 2am or some ungodly hour ... no traffic on the street, EVER at that time of night, as the story goes
.... yep ... car comes out of no-where and kills him ... a 20 something life snuffed out before he had a chance to live life.

20 seconds earlier or 20 seconds later and he'd be curing cancer right about now ....

no master plan to life ... just be sure to look both ways before crossing ....

[lazygood4nothinbum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bright eyed congrats lazy...just put the karma coins in the bank and treat yourself...

karma good or bad is still karma. thanx but nothing i care to bank. i'm not even sure if i didn't cause the situation in the first place. for all i know, the ditz might have gotten distracted by my pretty convertible and so didn't think to look back as she threw her car into reverse. maybe if the pretty convertible wasn't in her line of sight, she might have thought to look back before backing.

so just maybe my being there put those lives in jeopardy and so all i really did in "saving them" was to correct for the influence of my being there. so i guess in terms of karma and banking that would leave a zero balance and i'm fine with that.

bramm, you got that right, much better to have witnessed this than the alternative. i'm still upset from a few years back when i hit a raccoon. i can't imagine how awful it must be to see a person hit.

voyt, thanx, ya do what you can. looking back i also had a quick thought that i wasn't going to be able to get out of the car fast enough to push those people out of the way. fortunately my inner lazy thought to beep the horn.

mega, so sorry to hear about your wife's cousin. don't know if your guy stopped but we seem to have a lot of hit & runs in south florida. imagine first hitting someone and then leaving them to die. i think there must be a special place in hell for the perpetrators of such action.

[lazygood4nothinbum]

ps. just so ya should know i didn't rate this and don't know who did. thanx for the 5 stars but for future reference i'd rather my posts go unrated, well, all but for the triple x ones which should definitely be rated.

[Texas Proud]

First off... very good!!!

Now... I will give a comment that might put things in a different light...

Maybe if all the things that you had done to be at that point in time to save them... you had not done... there might have been someone else there to do the same... that is the whole thing with the karma thing... we don't know what would have happened or not... we just know what did...

AND.. what did was a good thing...