The FORTRESS of SOLITUDE

or
The Night I Met and Nearly Killed Ms. Swan
^{(and not in that order)}

Greetings, Gentle Reader(s). The last 7 days have been nothing if not eventful. Let's go back in time, shall we...? Stare into the picture below for 37.2 hours and continue reading once you've picked yourself off the floor...


As many of my friends who read my blog will know, I've been wanting to get back into skiing this year. My attendance at the annual Snow Show at Exhibition Place has been planned for more than a few months. In order to facilitate this purchase, I contacted my bank about floating me some bread (how 70s) to make it happen. Always ready to charge me interest, they said yes practically before I finished asking the question. They stupidly gave me so much in fact, that I was able to realize my fifth most important dream* of buying a Playstation 3.
Another reason for purchasing the PS3 was the price. Wal-Mart had a sale on PS3s that ended last Thursday (an 80Gig one for $549, incl. a bluetooth remote, Motor Storm and a controller). I only had to buy the cord to connect it to my telly (and any games I wanted - bought Skate and I was set). Anyway, the actual purchase of the PS3 was uneventful, it was getting to the Wal-Mart that was REALLY exciting.
T and I headed out on Thursday night around 6pm on our Playstation Adventure™. We headed to the ghetto-ist of sock 'n' high-heel wearin' Wal-Marts, the Dufferin/Bloor location. Shortly after arriving, we realized that they were completely sold out. It was not looking good. We got the numbers to a couple of locations from a gent working in the electronics section and left. There was a Toys 'R' Us location in the same mall, so we checked there. The 60Gig version without a game, or a controller, or a remote was the same price. Nu-uh.
T and I both called separate locations on the list. While I was on hold with mine, T gave me a dire look and shook his head. Not good. Turned out, though, that the St.Clair/Runnymede location had "loads" of them left in stock. Sweet. We jumped in our Zipcar and headed out. I wasn't entirely sure how to get there, so T did some nice navigating. We eventually hit St. Clair W and headed westward.
Many probably don't remember, but Thursday night was very foggy. It wasn't pea soup foggy, but the roads were somewhat...moist, shall we say. As the light turned green at the Keele/St.Clair W intersection, we accelerated up the slight gradient. On the left was a large plaza complex with a Home Depot and a McDonalds...both T and I turned to see if it was the Wal-Mart and turned back to the road (an action that probably took under 5 nanoseconds). As we turned back to the road, the car in front, a silver Honda Civic, stopped abruptly and turned it's left turn signal on. I was about 20 feet away at this point and slammed on the brakes with a "FUCK!!" Unfortunately for me (and the front fender), we were squarely in line with the streetcar tracks and the car began it's exaggerated and laborious slide closer and closer to the back end of the other car. I thought that we might stop in time, but alas, we were about a foot too long and bumped the car.
I nearly had an aneurysm right there and then, but instead simply barfed up a steady stream of "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" I was freaking out. I've never been in an accident (as the driver) before in my life. I pride myself on my observational skills and ability to react appropriately to avoid disaster. The car slid so slowly into hers, I had time to weigh my options - turn into oncoming traffic, or attempt to move the car right (there were cars preventing this in both directions). I figured tapping her bumper was the lesser of three evils and certainly the least injurious. The bump (I wouldn't call it a hit) jostled T and I slightly. We couldn't have been going more than 10km/h when we impacted the rear bumper and as I cautiously looked up, I could see the damage was only a slight chip in her paint (about two inches across).
I scanned across the car to the driver's side and saw the silhouette of the person behind the wheel. The door of the car opened and the driver got out...



*falling after finishing school, buying ski equipment, achieving world peace and finding a good cesear salad recipe...
Categories: Miscellaneous