Sunday, January 21, 2007

furniture, fire and the contemplation of one's existence

a lot there in that title, i know. so yesterday i went shopping for furniture. i love furniture in a 'i heart furniture' sort of way. IKEA used to be a second home. the entire IKEA catalog apartment was my first. yes my apartment was like edward norton's apartment in 'fight club'. i am in fact writing this from my angby chair. so yes, furniture shopping. so yesterday i saw enough ugly furniture to last me a lifetime! i know ugly is in the mind of the beholder - but really - ew! and not only was it ugly, but overpriced. on sale, my shoe! while driving on the way from shop #4 of the 9 visited... i saw the most horrific car accident of my life.
now admittedly, i've never seen many car accidents but this rivaled hollywood in its gruesomeness, it was far more real than the best michael bay movie effects. a white toyota in the fast lane suddenly drives up the 7' to 8' high embankment separating traffic and starts to flip back-end over front and lands upside down in, what is now, oncoming traffic. A blue ford hits it and i instantly see FIRE. the fire spreads, people stop, 911 is called and as i am on the wrong side of the freeway and don't want to play frogger in distracted traffic, have to continue on. the most horrifying thought - i didn't see anyone get out of the toyota or ford.
someone died. and it hits me that there was little that could have been done to help those people. the fire was instant and the ford had a huge gas tank. as we drive around for the rest of the day - i look at people in cars and think 'don't you realize what just happened?' there is nothing can could have prevented that accident.
yesterday we saw 2 potential accidents in addition to the 1 we did see that happened. the first was a car turning left across 2 lanes of traffic and apparently thinking he could turn before the opposite traffic, but he must have stalled the car because the oncoming VW almost took him out. i know it is a him as we passed the idiot later - definitely having shifting 'issues'. the 2nd accident we saw was a woman in a jag pulling out of the shopping center (also turning left) driving fast and almost taking out a mother and her young son. the driver promptly lights up a cig after that potential accident... yes, a cigarette in your hand is going to help you drive. right.
so yesterday just had me thinking about how life can change in a moment - will it have me change my not-so-wicked ways? probably not. but i need to make sure that my loved ones know that they fall into that category. also i realized that life is too short to spend my time looking at bad/ugly furniture...

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