THUMP

You’ll never guess what happened to me today. Never.

I started my day out as usual - shower, breakfast, checked my email and even left for work a few minutes early. My commute is only about a 5-minute drive, but since it’s not the safest to walk & since we have this crazy long driveway parking situation & we shuffle cars around several times a day, I usually drive (or sometimes take the bus). As I pulled up in front of Common Hope and signaled to make a right-hand turn into the parking lot out front, all of a sudden I heard (and felt) a THUMP! Oh great. A quick look out my passenger side window and there it was – the motorcycle who ran into me!

(Begin Rant) As I have mentioned before, a lot of Guatemalans are the most impatient drivers ever. They think nothing of passing cars on cobblestone, single lane roads sheerly for the mere fact that they are IMPATIENT. We’re all headed in the same direction and I’m no granny driver, but I never seem to be moving fast enough for them. Instead they’d rather fly by me and then slam on their brakes in front of me 10 meters down the road! (End Rant)

So, apparently this bonehead was in a hurry to get somewhere this morning with his girlfriend on back and decided to disregard my signal (it’s not very often that drivers here even use a signal, so he must not have been familiar with it) and pass me on the right-hand side (since there was on-coming traffic to his left). Duh. Right turn signal on - Hello? - I must be turning right since there is no left-hand turn and there is an obviously large parking lot to my right.

Thank goodness one of my co-workers was standing in the parking lot and witnessed the whole fiasco. She watched him try to get his front wheel out from under my car (yes, she said it was under the car) while his girlfriend who had jumped off, stood and watched as well. By this point I had my window down and was telling him to wait for me (while he scolded me to use my signal – he must be blind also). Somehow he got himself unstuck, pulled over to the other side of me and while I pulled into the spot (to get out of traffic) he drove away – with girlfriend in tow (stupid girl).

In fact, just in the past week or so a new law has been implemented for motorcyclists in Guatemala. They are required to wear a helmet and standard issue black vest, both with their license plate number visible on the back. Do you think this guy had his on? Heck no! No wonder he sped away. Little did he know I had already memorized his plate number from his moto – 39826L. (Thanks dad for instilling in me that I should always get the plate # and insurance info if I’m ever in an accident!)

In the end I suppose I’m lucky (and him too) that he wasn’t hurt, since I wouldn’t want to deal with that – even though it was his fault. But more than that, he should consider himself fortunate that Dewey is completely unharmed – physically that is (emotionally is another story). That’s right folks – not a scratch on him. But just in case, I won’t forget 39826L.

photo courtesy of Flickr

Hope you had a better start to your day than me!