Near Death Story Time!
So it was a late Friday night. I was 17 years old and I was the passenger in a flaming death sports car that had careening off of a hill at 90mph. Several seconds earlier the car had made its haphazard landing on the soft green space in the armpit of two intersecting highways and had burst into flames. But how did I find myself in this situation, you ask?
Earlier that evening I had been riding in the car of a friend-of-a-friend whom I had first met that night. Our common friend and his girlfriend were driving in a separate car. We were driving back to our common friend's house after seeing the movie Too Fast Too Furious (which would have ironic importance later), and were driving down a byroad which ran parallel to a highway. I was in the friend-of-friend's expensive sports car.
Suddenly, a guy driving an old mustang and wearing a wife-beater drove up parallel to our car. The friend driving me car looked at the mustang man. Mustang man looked at friend-of friend. They shared a silent, pregnant, intuitive moment of car penis envy known only to the captious owners of $60k automotive conspicuous consumption, and then without a word both of them floored it in their respective cars. I had just enough time to buckle my seat belt as our car hit 95mph and easily beat the other car in our impromptu drag race. Our car slowed down, and I looked to the right to see the other driver catch up to us and shout, for reasons I don't understand to this day, "Don't race what you can't buy!"
At that moment, I looked forward and saw that the road was curving to the right, the other driver was curving to the right, but that we were still driving straight ahead at 90mph, right through the empty space between two parked bulldozers. I remember looking ahead, seeing the bulldozers quickly approaching us, closing my eyes and wrapping my arms around my head, and having only enough time to think, "Oh shit",
We zoomed between the two bulldozers like our car was threading a needle (we missed one of the bulldozers by only several inches) as we careened off of the cornice of the hill we had been driving on. We were in the air for several seconds, and then landed with a thud as our car rolled about 4-5 times, belly-to roof-to belly, over the grass before the highway. It felt like being in a drier filled with glass shards.
Finally, our car settled (right side up, thankfully). All of the glass was shattered. The frame was totaled. Dust plumes were everywhere. I could not open my door, so I crawled through the broken window and fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. It was then that I first looked at the ruins of the car and realized, "Oh shit.....the hood is on fire!"
I hobbled to the other side of the car and saw the friend-of-friend with his head slumped over the steering wheel. His hair was matted with dust and fresh blood. I shook him awake, saying, "Michael, Michael! The car is on fire. We've got to go." He woozily clambered out of his window and we both hobbled away from the flaming wreckage.
Our common friend drove us to the hospital. I somehow walked away without a scratch on me, while the guy driving me had a bloody but superficial head wound. I later heard that in 60% of automobile crashes involving the particular model car we were in, part of the motor will crash through the frame and chop the passenger's legs off, so you know, walking way was nice.
If any one of several small factors had been slightly different, we would have died violent, firey deaths: if we had driven a few inches more to the left or right and had struck a bulldozer, or if we had landed headlights-first onto the grass while traveling at 90mph instead of side-rolling, or if the fire had reached the gas tank, we would have been dead within several seconds.
I also later discovered that this was the third car that this guy had totaled in the past several years.
So, as a life lesson kids, never accept rides from spoiled friends-of-friends who drive expensive sports cars.
Oh yeah, and if you're reading this......fuck you, Michael Bey!