grandmas

Sunday, October 7, 2012

In the line of tire

I'm taking my daughter home in Lehi and sitting in the road in the dark in my little gray Mazda 3 waiting to make the turn when suddenly there are big, blinding headlights right in my eyes.
And sort of a metal ladder kind of thing.
I blink and realize it's a fire truck and the metal thingy is the front bumper which is clearly coming my way without there being any room for it.
The fire engine is making the turn into my lane where my car already is.
"Mom!" said my daughter, "Look out!"
I kind of froze because my brain was trying to compute what was going on.
Why was this big truck turning into me when I was there first?
What was I supposed to do? Were we going to die?
I finally snapped out of my paralysis and started to try and get out of the way.
"Back up!" I told myself.
Thankfully I had the presence of mind to check behind me before I did any actual backing.
I somehow remembered how to shift into reverse and started backing up and over to the far side of the road because there was no way the fire engine was going to make the turn without taking up most of the road.
He swung past us without an apology.
I started breathing again and checked to see if we were fine. We were. It was like a 2-second scare.
But now that I think about it, I'm ticked.
Why was he in charge of what went down?
He was a lot bigger than we were but he was turning into my part of the road and without much warning.
He didn't have his siren on or lights blinking so he obviously wasn't on his way to an actual emergency.
In retrospect, I think he should have waited for me to turn and clear the road.
He should have backed off when he realized there was no room for him and us.
I should have taken down a unit number or license number and reported him for bad fire engine driving.
Or at least I should have shouted, "Where's the fire?"


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