How To Destroy A Car ?

In just over 6 seconds...


I have asked for a day off from work in order to go to the Consulate of Guadalajara cuz i have some notary paperwork to sign in front of the authorized authorities. Sounds important but really takes like 3 minutes. I basically went all the way to Guadalajara to sign 6 pages and get a consulate stamp over each one of my 6 signatures. And i didnt even see the consul. But anyway.

I asked dear-beloved if he would be so kind to take me to the bus station that night to take the 1:30am bus. I'd make it around 6:30am, will have breakfast and then go get my sheets signed, hop in a cab and make my way back home.
But then he said, well, i dont work tomorrow so why dont we go by car so we leave at 4:30am, make it there at 9am, have breakfast, sign your papers and go back home?


I told him i wasnt sure my old car would make it all the way to Guadalajara and back but if he was up for the driving, sure, why not?


And off we were at 4:30am.


And i slept pretty much since minute one until around 7:30am.


We were then on the highway, and the scenary was beautiful, all green and luxurious thanks to the morning drizzle. 


And that's when it happened. Dear-beloved lost control of the car, we slidded on the right, then on the left and the second i thought cool i think he's got the car back on track, we actually "hit" another slippery spot and front-crashed the car on the median wall, did an awesome 360°, hit the wall again but with the trunk and ended up in the middle of the highway, right outside the curve we were in.


He asked me if i was OK and urged me to get out of the car. I obliged. And he ran to the entrance of the curve to slow down traffic. I couldnt stop shaking.


After 2 guys stopped to move the car to the emergency lane so traffic could go on at its normal pace, dear-beloved came back to me and that's when we realized how lucky we both were. We dont have a scratch, not a bruise to "prove" anything even happened. 
Apart from the destroyed car and pictures we took of it, we could as well have been taking a morning walk in the Jalisco's mountains. 


If only.


Ambulance got there in not even 10 minutes but received a call of another accident that just happened 1.5km behind us with casualties. And since we were just fine, they dashed. 


And we waited. And waited. And waited some more. For the crane to come pick up the car, for the Feds to allow it, for the insurrance car...


We were there, on the side of the road for about an hour and a half when a pick up truck did exactly the same little show off dance we had done an hour earlier. I was so surprised/in shock/in disbelief that i was completely glued to the ground, watching in awe an accident happening in front of my very eyes.


Dear beloved grabbed me and threw me away from the road, in the bushes, just in case the truck would flip over and come flatten us both. It didnt. It stopped a few meters away from us, pretty much exactly where our car had stopped earlier. But there was 4 people in that car, 2 of which injured. 


To make one long story short, since, as i said, we were the only non-injured people of all these accidents (we heard later that in 1.5 hours, there were 5 accidents over a 3km portion), we ended up spending 4.5 hours waiting on the highway to be taken care of. 

Car is dead, engine was split in two, the front axle was also split in two, one of the back wheel was parallel to the road, one of the back door couldnt open. We sold it to the junkyard for just enough money to pay all that needs to be paid on such a situation, got a ride to Guadalajara with the insurrance guy, got hosted by a friend of mine, went signing the papers the following day and came back by bus.


TWO things are coming to my mind after such "incident":
1) you can truly know what people are worth when you're in such a challenging situation - you have the people who pass the crash almost stopping their car to feed on their morbid glutony, people who dont think twice and stop to help right away, people who keep their cool, people who try to abuse you while in dispair and people who'd simply give their live to save yours.
2) there is NOTHING like health.


And if i had just one little piece of advice, it'd be: USE YOUR SEATBELT.
It's the second time it saved my life and/or prevented me from being seriously injured. None of the 4 people of the truck who crashed after us was using it and 3 got injured, 2 pretty seriously. You can buy yourself a new car. Not a new life.


And as dear-beloved reminded me on our way back home, i was right, the car didnt make it to Guadalajara.


Now dear Santa, here is what i want under the Xmas tree this year ... Dont disappoint me!

Crazy Bus Ride

This morning, dear beloved got a last minute call asking him if he could work today ... that was on my way to work. So he took the car and i obviously had to go back home by bus.

Normally, my bus takes 34 minutes to get to the bus stop i get off at. 


Today it took 19 minutes. 


Speed bumps? What speed bumps? You want to get off at this stop? Who the hell do you think you are? And that bloody bus in front, move! you, slow ass! What do you mean there's no overtaking here? Whatever.
And damn you people for ringing the "i get off here" bell.


Dear Unit-169 ... your Jesus Christ stickers will do you no good. Nor your rosary.


But thank you for getting me home in no time ;)

Cat Bite

A good deed doesnt always pay off.

This morning, i saw one of my cats in the tree right outside the house. Since he was meowing like he truly needed my help, i called him down and decided to carry him back inside the house (so he wouldnt have to run for his life if ever my dog spotted him).


Well that was without counting on Lola (my dog) jumping that damn high. 


As soon as she spotted me with the cat in my arms, she threw herself at me and even my knee wasnt keeping her away. I was almost at the window where i first intented to throw the cat inside the house when she actually managed to jump high enough to bite the cat on the back leg.


My cat Yeti is not the kinda cat that takes that kinda crap without reacting so he obviously was more than eager to fight back. Problem is: he wasnt fighting back the dog but me. 


So i got scratched on my face (not fun) and got bitten on my hand.


I swear it hurt up to my soul. 


He left 3 bite marks: one for his lower teeth and 2 with his upper fangs.


And as i said, it hurt like mother fucking HELL.


Wounds were so deep they actually bled for a couple of hours. It amazed me how such incredibly small wounds can hurt that much. I mean seriously.


But what worried me more was the following morning when my hand had turn a nice shade of red and was twice its normal size. I had no idea cats were venomous.


Since that swell got me seriously worried, i went to the doctor to check it up. When i told him my cat had bitten me, he smiled and told me: people always come for cat bites, almost never for dog bites.
And why is that? Simply because a dog bite stays open so it's easier to clean and it dries quicker. Whereas a cat bite goes deeper (thanks to needle sharp teeth) and closes almost instantly, keeping all the venom bacterias inside with no way out.


As the doctor said, back in the days, we would have needed to cut open to clean the wound but thanks to the wonders of modern medicine, we can now use drugs to sort it all out. Drugs such as penicilin which has been used in the treatment of bacterial infections caused by organisms. 
Which is perfect to fight cat's venom.


Bottom line, if i'm ever stupid enough to try to "save" my cat from my dog, it's better to get bitten by the dog  than by the cat. And as my doctor nicely put it: your cat is more than capable of handling that kind of situation with the dog, he also runs faster than the dog and will most likely NOT get hurt if you dont get involved.


Well, screw the cat ... he's on his own from now on!

That is SOOO not my cat and dog. But if only ....

Yep, this is more like this ... Except that both mine are white ... 

Happy 14th of July

Happy Bastille Day as they call it in the US.

Whatever you call it, today, in France, we celebrate the 222th anniversary of the Take of the Bastille (if that even means something) which in clearer words, the official day when the Monarchy became a Democracy (or so they want us to believe).


222 years later, it's also the day that my car got towed right outside my office and the day i'm finally going to meet the in-laws.


Still thinking on how am i gonna celebrate all that!