Fuzzy Memories - Part 1

Here's a new installment of my blog. It's called "Fuzzy Memories," and it's basically stories from my past that I vaguely remember. Everything that I write is true to the best of my memory, which Lord knows is about as solid as Jell-O.

This first installment was inspired by the wonderful, family-oriented show The Moment of Truth. For those not familiar, TMoT is a FOX game show where contestants must reveal their most terrible, dark secrets to win money. If they tell the truth, they win money. If they lie, they lose. Questions tend to deal with relationships and family, which is convenient because they always have the contestant's significant other and family in the studio, so they can watch in horror as it is revealed that the their loved one has been cheating/lying/plotting their deaths for quite some time.

The other day one of the questions posed on TMoT was "Have you ever been involved in a car accident and fled the scene?" Of course the woman had done this, and when she responded truthfully, the audience booed and hissed (and then immediately cheered and applauded after she was awarded money; go figure).

This crappy, sleazebag gameshow triggered a memory, a memory I'm not too proud of but every time I think about it, I laugh. I had fled the scene of a traffic accident once.

I was in college, probably a junior. Many of my friends and I were journalists. I was kind of a crappy journalist. I slacked off a lot and spent a lot of time inebriated on a variety of substances. But I was always there to lend a friend a hand. And my friend Patrick needed one.

Patrick was a neurotic, studious student with high hopes for his future (he currently works for a newspaper in Florida). He was always very polite and obeyed all laws (note: he was a fairly straight edge kind of guy). One day he asked if I could drive him to the local movie theater so that he could conduct an interview. I think Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 was coming out, and he was doing a piece on the fervor. I could be wrong. This is called Fuzzy Memories.

Anyway, I took him to the theater in my beat up '89 Oldsmobile. I didn't want to go inside so I sat in the car in the parking lot waiting for Pat to come out. About 10 minutes later he did. He hopped into the car, I put it into reverse and I pushed the accelerator.

SLAM!!!!

We turned around and saw I had rammed a giant, parked pick-up truck. I'm completely calm. Meanwhile, Pat is freaking out. Here we are in a parking lot in the middle of the day, Pat just was in the theater spending much face-to-face time with the theater manager, who obviously knew Pat's name at this point. It was understandable that he'd be a little worried.

So I got out of the car and did a quick inspection. My car had a little bit of a scratch on it. Nothing major. And considering my car was basically a hunk of junk, I could have cared less. The truck too was fairly unharmed. The only damage whatsoever was a cracked taillight.

No owner was in sight. I had nothing to write a note with. The damage was minimal. Pat was freaking out. So I put the car in drive and drove off. All of this lasted about 30 seconds.

So there. I got it off my chest. And I was able to recount a memory that I haven't recalled in probably about 5 years. If any other random memories ever occur to me, I'll write those down too as my next installments in Fuzzy Memories.