Love tap, baby, love tap

The day could be considered normal with only one true exception. This evening, I drove my normal Yakima St. route from work to home. It's a non-freeway route which takes about 20 minutes in either direction both of which avoid the regular flow of traffic. I've never run into any major delays and a traffic jam along this route may consist of three or four cars waiting at a stoplight.

I could easily take two other paths to and from work. The first, and most obvious, would be Interstate 5. This cement ribbon winds from the Canadian border all the way down the three west coast states and into Mexico. For most of my life I've lived but a stone's throw away from I-5. My current abode cannot be exempted from that statement. I could easily head down Sprague St. and onto I-5 for the five or six miles I that would take me to Hwy. 512 where I would head east for a mile or two then get off on Pacific Ave. head south... Yadda, yadda. No fun. Even though the freeway may seem like a faster solution it's not. All the getting onto and off from stuff takes plenty of time and make the trip about the same as my leasurely Yakima route.

I could also take Pacific Ave. south to my daily destination. Although a surface street with a speed limit of 35 MPH, Pac. Ave. is also a somewhat equal, if not slower, road than Yakima. It'd kinda' an older cousin to Yakima St. It has more lights, a faster speed limit, two more lanes and a center turning lane. These features make Pac. Ave. a more obvious choice for travelers who want to avoid knarly freeway traffic but still feel like they can drive in a freeway-like fashion. Not so. Its numerous lights and greater popularity scratch Pac. Ave. off my driving list.

So we return to my preferred path of Yakima St. and this evening's commute. Round about 56th St. I received a tap from behind. I had no passengers in the car which eliminated a finger tap to summon my attention. This tap came from some place else. Somewhere, outside my car. It was another car! I was just rear-ended — kinda'. I could see the expression on the face of the man who did the deed. He looked just about as surprised as I felt. We pulled over to a parking lot at the corner of the intersection and met by examining the back bumper of my Subaru. Nothing. We both checked for any sign that his extremely slow speed mistake could've made on my car and we found nothing. I poked and probed the bumper with my eyes and by pushing it in strategic places and still found nothing. Sure enough, this buffer of plastic and styrofoam had retained its shape much like cars do in those commercials showing tragic runaway shopping cart into the side of your car examples. We likewise checked his from bumper and found no sign of the error. I was relatively pleased with the outcome but yet again checked my car for damage. Nothing. I mildly scolded the man and didn't swap any insurance info with him and headed on our way.

An aside

Comments (0) | To Top