The Cartoonish Life of My Friend

Your eyes are not fooling you. That is a tree on a car. Not any car. Marie's Car. Last night I was slaying zombies on the Wii, and I got a random call from her. Of course I did not answer the phone because killing zombies is a hard job, and I did not want to pause the game right as I was slaughtering those flesh eating bastards. I'm just saying. I know I'm a horrible friend. After I quit the game, I decided to check the message she left me on my phone.

Marie and I are very consistent with our phone conversations. We usually talk to each other around 5 o'clock and when I was in New York around 11pm, because I didn't like walking home alone. I figure that, hopefully, no one will attack someone on the phone. I mean muggers can't be that desperate that they attack someone who could identify them over the phone to however they are talking to. So far, this has worked. I feel safer at night having someone on the phone with me, it's the closest thing I have to mace.

Anyway, getting her call yesterday around 7 was odd, and the fact that she left a message was a little weird. When I checked her message all I could hear was "car.clipped.lady". I immediately called her back because....we'll even though she annoys me, getting in a car accident is not fun. Especially when you don't have anyone near you to make it a little better. So when I called her the first words out of my mouth were "you got hit by a car". Her first words back to me were "no, a fucking tree"

I wish I was making this up. According to Marie she was sitting in her apartment the other day reading a book. It was too stormy outside to do anything and she pretty much spends her time reading books anyway. She could hear the thunder outside and could see the flick of lightening from her window. The next then she heard was a big bang and then the splintering of wood, followed by 'the loudest noise in the world". Of course this was the sound of the tree crashing on her car. At first she didn't think anything of it, until she remembered that her car is parked near a tree, in fact her car is the only car near any tree in that neighborhood.

When she got outside....well you see the picture

Her car is totaled. The tree made a nice little home right on top of it. I thought this only happened in cartoons or during those Allstate commercials. At first I was concerned (because once again car accidents suck!) but then I couldn't stop laughing. Really, who does this happen to. When does a tree strike lightening during a not so major thunderstorm and land perfectly on your car. In front of your house. As you are reading a trashy romance novel about throbbing members.

Her insurance company (Allstate maybe?) covers this sort of thing and for the next few weeks she will be driving a rental until they access the damage. Or until they take two looks at the car and realise it is beyond repair.

Beyond.

She got this car as a college graduation present from her mom. The car is about 5 years old, cause I remember her mom let us take this baby to prom. We both did not have dates the night, because I was too afraid to ask anyone and we were certain no one was going to either one of us. No one expected her to go anyway, and because of this she went. I decided to be her 'friend date' because what else did I have to do. We got all dolled for this thing, only to both look like mafia princesses that Saturday. This was before I knew black does not look good on me (at all!) and before she knew bouffants are not attractive. On anyone. We got there extremely early. That kind of early when only the chaperone's were there. My history teacher was the first one to see us and I couldn't tell if he was shocked that we showed up at all or that we looked like girls from a mobster movie.

We stayed for about 15 minutes. Which was enough time to see our 'friends' from the media club and drink some weird beverage that was green. Afterwards we drove around town, got burritos from a place 45 minutes outside of our city, and then went to Walmart because she ended up staying the night at my house but we she didn't have any pj's to wear.


That was pretty much our life in high school, attending events we felt isolated from, and then escaping from them to hang out with each other. Thinking on it now, I think the tree did her a favor. We are so different from those girls laying out in my living room watching a rerun of Medium while the cats kept us company. That car was/is the last physical thing from her (and my) high school years, and now it is weighed down to the ground by a tree in her front yard. Now if only that tree could destroy the pictures we have of that night. They are horrible, trust me.