This one’s about my truck…

Last weekend it snowed here in lovely Fox Lake. Not a lot, maybe 2 inches. We haven’t had much snow this year. But, it was enough for people to break out the shovels and the snowblowers and go to work on their driveways. I have neighbors that I can only hope are not like everyone else’s.  One of them is a guy I like to call Burlyman. Burlyman has an ATV with a snowplow on it, and of course, this snowfall was enough to warrant the ATV. I guess you gotta have your fun somehow. Anyway, in order to use the ATV, he pulls both his cars out onto the street, double parked. Blocking the entire plowed street. Enter my neighbor from across the street, Spazlady. Now, we’ve lived across the street from Spazlady and her husband, Drunkdude, for a long time. Both me and the wife really like Drunkdude because, a, he’s (unsurprisingly) always drunk, and b, he’s a genuinely nice guy. There’s a cosmic balance to Drunkdude and Spazlady’s marriage. As mellow and chill as Drunkdude is, Spazlady is, well, freaking crazy. Certifiable. Dangerous to herself and others. Literally. So Spazlady decides she has to run some errands and she backs her G35 out the driveway, around my Titan, which was also pulled onto the street for snow removal purposes, and heads toward Burlyman’s house. You’ll remember that this is where his cars are double parked. And instead of just rolling down her window and asking Burlyman to move his cars, Spazlady lays on the horn for a solid 20 seconds or so. Burlyman is still driving his ATV, and he does what any veteran jackass would do in a similar situation: Nothing.  This, predictably, causes Spazlady to do what she does best: Spaz out. She slams her car into reverse, punches the throttle and slams directly into my truck’s rear bumper. I learned a bunch of things all at once in the subsequent seconds. First, the G35 can’t really take a shot to the rear very well. Second, the rear bumper of the Titan is remarkably tough. Finally, Spazlady has a setting of ’11’ that she saves for when things really get out of hand.  She erupted from her car, swearing like no woman should ever swear. Things were coming out of her mouth that no honest man should hear. It was both unbelievable and utterly expected. She slammed her car door, still swearing, and stalked toward me, overcoat flapping like a rumpled and very ornery umbrella. “I think I hit your truck.” Really? “Yeah, it seems that way.” I walked toward the Titan, expecting the worst based on what I could see of the G35.  The bumper was only slightly twisted though. I didn’t see any other damage right there on the street. The G35 was another story though. I’m no insurance adjuster but there was an easy $2500 in damage to the rear deck lid, bumper, and tail lights. Shards of red plastic from her lights were on my bumper and in the snowy street, like drops of frozen blood from a wounded beast.  “If it wasn’t in the street, I wouldn’t have hit it.” As if my truck somehow leapt in front of her. I kept my cool. “Yeah, it’s pretty crowded here. Looks like Burlyman isn’t done with his driveway yet.” She didn’t apologize, but she did bring over her insurance card.