09 October 2009

Socks And Sandals; Or, Fashion Smells

Today, I noticed my Real Analysis professor wearing socks with his sandals.

Le gasp, right? I mean, what a dork! You can totally tell from ten miles away that he's a math professor, because, like, only a completely fashion blind person would ever pull a stunt like that. And they were white socks with black sandals. It just keeps getting worse!

Perhaps it is a sign that I myself am a math dweeb, but my first thought on noticing his white socks was not the amused and condescending-to-math-enthusiasts disapprobation that a non-math-dweeb friend of mine expressed. I thought first, "Wow those are clean!" Then I thought it was very considerate of him to wear them.

Why would I think that, when I risk going blind from the appalling fashion faux pas? Because feet smell. When people walk around in southern California for the better part of a day, their feet sweat and smell even more.

And when fashion-conscious people neglect to wear socks with their sandals, they treat everyone around them to the trendy and chic toe-farts emanating from their voguish footwear.

Yeesh, gross.

08 October 2009

Of Such A Malefactress As This

I’m back, after a year. I’m not sorry. Welcome again, dear reader!

I’m supposed to be blogging about my vacation. A couple months after it happened. But I’m frightfully lazy when it comes to condensing a whole month of my life into words, so I’ll get around to that eventually. In installments, here and there. Yep. That way, I can make people who read my blog just to find out what I said about them at least skim the rest of my stuff. You shall be inundated with the trivia of my life.

This post is to inform everyone of the details of my car accident that I just had. Yes, just, like three hours ago or so. I’m writing this as I wait for the cops to show up, actually, so it was about 40 minutes ago, but I won’t post it until I get home. I’ve made a note to myself to carry a book in my car at all times in the event of this sort of thing ever happening again. CHP is slow, and having nothing to do but sit and think about an accident sucks. Imagine big hairy lion testicles, with your lips firmly clamped around them. That’s what this is like.

Anyway, the accident. It was like this. I was minding my own business, just going along in my own lane, when suddenly a big-rig flopped over right in front of me. Naturally, I braked and attempted to steer to the side so as not to hit it. All my efforts were in vain, however, as the top of the truck came off and thousands of crates of bananas spilled free: the force of the impact shot them free of their skins and they hurtled at my windshield, smashing and obscuring my vision. The skins were sucked under my tires and there was a hilarious slapstick moment while the wheels spun ineffectually on the banana peels. Then I hit the big-rig, my car pinwheeling comically into a pile of fruit as I bounced off.

What? That’s really how it was!

Ok, fine, it wasn’t. I hit a car on an off-ramp from the freeway. Since I rear-ended him, for some reason this makes it my fault. I completely fail to understand this, I must confess. He was in my way. It’s his fault for being there.

I have determined the positive and negative sides of this accident as I wait for CHP. It’s been 45 minutes since I placed the call now, so I’ve had a bit to think.

Positives:
1) This will teach me to be a less arrogant driver (but not less angry).
2) The other driver was not injured.
3) His car did not suffer more than a dent about 3 centimetres wide in the back bumper, and the back bumper moving down about two millimetres. Very inexpensive, considering what it could have been.
4) He was a very nice man about it. Really very gracious, considering that it was my his fault.
5) He was driving a company car on work business. That means, should he change his mind about being injured, worker’s comp will trump private insurance in paying for it. Phew!

Negatives:
1) My insurance rates will go up.
2) My insurance rates will go up.
3) My insurance rates will go up.
4) I no longer have a perfect at-fault-accident-free record.
5) My insurance rates will go up.
6) My car is totalled. I have to explain this one: it’s not actually totalled as in un-drivable. It’s totalled in that the repairs to fix it are more than the car is worth, so my insurance will not pay for the fixups. They’ll pay me the value of the car. Which is not much. Woe is me!
7) My insurance rates will go up.

Ok, so that was as far as I got before CHP finally arrived. I’ve thought more about the accident since them. Yes, I am currently fixated on it. Wouldn’t you be?

The other guy left before the accident report was filed. CHP took too long getting there: get this, they drove past the accident to the next exit, saw no one there, and figured we had left. It was only when I called to find out why the heck it was taking so long that they went “Oops, haha, our bad” and sent an officer to the right place. So the other guy had left by then. Which is great for me, because if he could drive off and didn’t feel injured enough to wait to tell the officer, it’ll be better for me if he changes his mind about being injured later.

You may think I seem paranoid on this point, but I was in an accident where another car ran into me. It was in a garage, at maybe 2 miles an hour, and all that happened was her tire left a streak in the paint of my fender. That person started saying it was me that ran into her and oh how she huuuuuurt. After she had told me she was fine, and the accident was her fault, and it was a ridiculous little accident anyway. 2 miles an hour cannot hurt anyone! That went away without a fuss once my insurance company found out that she was uninsured and unlicensed.

But my sister was in an accident where the guy claimed millions and millions of dollars of injury, and she was at fault in that one. Her lawyers had to hire a private eye to follow the guy forever and prove he was full of poopy before that went away, and he still got a couple hundred grand anyway. (His lawyer cost more than that so he ended up in the hole. This is called karmic revenge, I believe.)

So, I’m very paranoid that people will sue me if I run into them with my car, which is one reason why until today I have never run into anyone with my car. I’ve done it on a bicycle, though. A fun past-time, running over people with my bicycle.

What was my point here? Oh, right. The guy left, so he doesn’t have a good case if he tries to sue. That was my point, yes. And the accident report will back me up on this.

Oh wait! No, it won’t, because the officer didn’t want to take one, when he finally showed up an hour and a half later. I couldn’t force him to write one, so I had to leave without that nice secure feeling that I did my bit to cover my ass. It made me sad.

To finish this post, I will just remark that I am being punished out of proportion to my crime. I have to take California public transportation until the damage to my car is assessed, seeing as how it’s not legal for me to drive at the moment. It’s that headlight dangling by the wheel. But after the assessment, I have the option of either continuing to take public transportation (and sponge rides off dutiful family at 6 in the morning two days of the week since pubtrans hasn’t got any busses that early) or riding around in my car which I can’t afford to fix properly and so will have duct-taped into legality. And here was me thinking there wasn’t anything that could be done to my car to make it look more white trash than it already was.

Under the circumstances, is there anything that could be more humiliating? I might as well stitch a big red A for Accident into all my collars.