Sean "Harry Potter" McCoy and the Pick-Up Truck of Life

Today's blog posting will be a bit atypical from it's usually humor-laced theme.
A few weeks back I was commuting to work when a young man got on the bus at 46th and Aurora. (just before the Aurora bridge into downtown Seattle. Morbid footnote: The Aurora bridge is 2nd in the nation for suicide jumpers only to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco) He looked familiar but I couldn't place him until I saw his scar. Immediately a memory flooded back to me that I hadn't thought about in quite some time.
Back in 2002 I had been going through a "clubbing" phase with my roommates. We'd go to clubs like Polyesthers, have some drinks, flirt with girls, have some more drinks and then head home. We always used a DD or took a taxi. But on one particular night half of our entourage went home earlier than the other half, and took the DD with them. Unbeknowst to most of the remaining half the DD left money for us to take a cab. Unfortunately he left it with the drunkest and most irresponsible one of us, Sean McCoy. Sean had been couch surfing in our place for a while and was a good guy, just made some bad decisions. One of those bad decisions was when he decided to buy us all a round with our cab money. (which we still had no idea he had. We also were not aware that 3 of our party had left already, including the DD) When it was time to leave we all realized that we had no DD and Sean fessed up that we had no cab money. Another member of our posse, whom we affectionately called Norwegian (because he was a giant pale dude) said he wasn't that drunk and could drive. Mistake. Norweigan drove, Sean rode "bitch" in the front of the truck, Will was in the passenger seat and I climbed into the cramped little back seat, wedged next to a sub-woofer amp. We drove home, blasting the radio and singing/shouting along to Bon Jovi. It really was a great evening. But it started to rain and the roads beacame slick. We were literally 5 blocks from home when Norweigan decides he wants to hit the gas and go 70......in a 30. We immediately began to fishtail and everything went slo-mo at that point. There was as guard rail along the corner of the road where we were fishtailing except for one 20 foot gap that led to a storm ravine. The truck spun around backward and slammed into the curb which instantly popped the truck up in the air. We flipped once, landed on the tires and rolled down the storm ravine 2 or 3 more times. I remember closing my eyes as we were in the air and thinking that was it. My life didn't flash before me or anything. Just black. When we rolled down the ravine it was like being inside of a dryer and dirt and sticks flooded through the back window because it had blown out. It also felt like someone was punching me really hard in the ribs repeatedly. We came to a stop right side up and it was totally quiet for what seemed like forever. Sean was the first one out of the truck and he sprinted up the ravine and was gone. I felt along my body to see where I was hurt. I thought I was in shock and was certain something was wrong. But as I felt and looked I could only see bruising on the right side of my rib cage. The sub-woofer had wedged me in and banged up against me as we rolled. I asked Norweigan if he was alright and he said, "Yeah, I just broke my leg." His non chalance was not surprising. He was a pretty tough hombre. I looked at his leg and his right shin was definitely broken. He climbed out of the ravine on it though. Lastly I asked Will if he was alright and he was sobbing. I feared all kinds of things. I asked him again. He said through the sobs, "MY FUCKING FINGER!!!" He opened his left hand up to show me what he was cradling in his right hand. It was his right index finger and it was not attached. I almost hurled. I helped him up the ravine and sat him down on the curb. He immediately tried to dail 911 but there was too much blood coming from his hand and his phone was caked with it. It didn't matter anyways because an ambulance pulled up at that moment. One EMT assisted Norweigan, and the other helped Will. Then he turned to me and was asking me where I was injured and shining a light in my eye as he sat me down on the curb. I told him I was uninjured but he kept asking me where I was hurt. He pulled my shirt up and proceeded to examine me in the same way I had examined myself moments after the accident. Since I was the only one that didn't need immediate assistance he was asking me to give a report, so he started asking me questions. "How fast were you going?"....."Tell me what happened step by step"........"Was there alcohol involved? (I refused to answer this one but Norweigan fessed up to it to the other EMT)"......"Were you wearing seatbelts?" It was then I realized no one was wearing a seatbelt. And that Sean was no where to be found. After I gave my statement I went back to the apartment to get some things together for Will because he would be in the hospital for a few days so they could re-attach his finger. I'm not sure if Sean was already there or if he showed up while I was there but when I saw him he looked like he was from a slasher movie. He had a giant gash down the side of his face where the rearview mirror had broken off and sliced him. I guess he had shown up to our neighbor's (Teresa Jones at the time) and scared the hell out of her for obvious reasons. In retrospect this was one of the most terrifying moments I've experienced because one or all of us could easily be dead. Norweigan lost his liscense and his truck was totaled. We saw pictures later and it was torqued like a cinnamon twist donut. And he had no insurance. The truck was barely a year old. They re-attached Will's finger but a few times while healing the bone seperated on accident and he would sit on the floor and rock back and forth, whimpering in pain. It was funny at the time, but in hindsight it really sucked. Sean's face healed but much to his dismay a movie franchise was taking off starring a young boy wizard with a famous scar that spawned his nickname "Potter McCoy". We'd often speak to him in bad english accents to screw with him. And all I had were some bruised ribs compliments of an Alpine speaker.
Seeing him again on the bus was odd. He had put on some lb's and was almost unrecognizable, but the scar was a dead give away. He never noticed me and I didn't say anything to him . I'm not sure why exactly, except that it's a time and experience in my life I don't like to re-live too often.

Abort! Abort!

Today's Metro nugget comes courtesy of my friend and co-worker, Linda. She overheard 2 gentlemen swapping bus stories and regaled me with this whopper (Not whopper as in "a lie", but whopper as in "Holy shit, someone actually said that out loud?!")also, forgive me Linda, if I am paraphrasing here:

Man 1 to Man 2 - "I was on the bus the other day and a very attractive girl gets on. This guy notices and immediately starts flirting with her. She was polite enough but then he starts full on hitting on her, saying, 'Let me take you out to dinner.....let me get your phone number....'. She politely tells him, 'No thanks I am engaged to be married.' To which he replied, 'That's no problem. I have NO problem with that'......YADAYADAYADA. She then states, 'I am actually pregnant, expecting my first child with my fiance.' without missing a beat he says, 'Don't worry about that. I can help you take care of that mistake and then we can go from there.'

Ahhhh, Metro. Only you can provide abortion solicitations from complete strangers.