The Friday 13th that cemented the idea that there might just be something to all this happened a few years back.. I was enjoying a rare moment of marital bliss - lunch with the wife and kids - when there was a knock at the door.
opened it to find the neighbour from two doors up, cap in hand, standing there trying to tell me there had been a 'slight' accident with my car. Took me a moment to clue in as my auto was parked in my driveway..but, I followed him outside to find my next door neighbour apoplectic and his wife sobbing uncrontrollably as they stared at a multi-car pile-up in my driveway...
I share a driveway with the chap next door.. On my side was the missus' car and mine lined up bumper to bumper. My neighbour had a beauty of a little red Japanese sportster on his side, only 675 km on the dial, a ' birthday gift' to his bride...
on the other side of him is a small piece of grass, laughingly called a lawn, surrounded by a split rail fence, and then the other neighbour's drive.
well, it seems, that said neighbour had two cars, one of which was a crapmobile, he was in the process of ' restoring '.. Finished puttering for the day he wanted to put it back in his garage, and, as it didn't run, he had to push it. Unable to budge it on the drive's incline he elected to use his other vehicle to assist with the push. Putting the ' good' car up against the clunker's bumper, he put it in gear and placed a brick on the accelerator, As it began to move the other car, he ran up and hopped in to apply the brakes when it got to the desired spot and not crash through his wall..
Well, brakes applied, the car stopped, but the other, still brick powered wanted to keep going, and it did, sliding off the bumper, it drove through the fence, over the lawn, plowed into the birthday present which was shoved sideways across the drive into my and the missus' cars, before he could get out run over and pull the brick off the pedal and shut her down.
after tearing hair out and browbeating the nutter for being such a nutbar, the cops arrive to look into matters. First plod there asks who was driving vehicle A.. answer no one, vehicle B same , and so on.. He's scratching his head over what to do. calls supervisor who arrives and surveys damage, gets full on embellished story...
They confer.. seems they can't charge him with a ' driving' offence as he wasn't behind the wheel.. they dig out little book and finally decide to write him up for destruction of private property -the fence - and unsafe operation of machinery - the brick on the pedal - as there's nothing in the traffic laws to cover bricks as vehicle operators..
After muich pain I call the insurance to report accident in driveway and spend 45 minutes trying to make adjuster understand the story then trying to stop her from laughing over the phone long enough to tell me where I can get help for damaged cars.
Spent from day's unexpected turn I go to top of basement stairs to get coat, step on kid's soccer ball and promptly do a header down 13 [ I know, scary ] stairs...instead of calming walk I end up in Emergency with dislocated shoulder, cracked rib and bruised kidney...
since then I've stayed in as much as possible on Friday 13th...