primary school memories

So, there’s this trend on twitter, #primaryschoolmemories, and just for the sake of reminiscing and to not flood everyone’s twitter feeds, I’ve decided to move mine here.

1. being bribed to do math problems with mom for smarties
2. jack and the teen talk
3. jelly bracelets
4. crazy bones
5. yu-gi-oh
6. ‘boyfriends’ - who were really just a friend, with a title
7. tattoos and recess - which were really just pictures drawn on your shoulder with markers
8. s club 7, spice girls, britney spears, nsync, backstreet boys, kelly clarkson + hilary duff
9. the first windows messenger
10. piczo - my site was the fucking best.
11. spelling tests - i had my own enhanced list because i was too awesome 8-]
12. shakespeare public schools version of four square - plus, it getting so popular that we had tournaments during school hours
13. ‘the pit’ @ shakespeare
14. choreographing dances in the pit and asking our teacher if we could do them for the class during the first half of lunch
15. choreographing a dance to hilary duff’s ‘why not’ with jada for a talent show and thinking we were the shit.. when we really were quite awful
16. candygrams + popcorn sales
17. bus monitoring the most insane children
18. family studies
19. being made to take a walky-talky to the park down the street
20. DPA
21. yearly speech competitions
22. when webcam’s were the newest and coolest gadget that we all had to have - and use 24/7
23. neopets
24. anonymous hate mail on piczo and having a full fledged argument with them for everyone to see
25. it was game boys being played with under desks as opposed to trying to text
26. bringing digital cameras with us EVERYWHERE and having to take pictures of EVERYTHING
27. finding the perfect msn display picture as opposed to facebook profile picture
28. nintendo 64
29. walk-men + cds
30. heeleys
31. learning to play the recorder
32. discovering eyeliner and never going a day without it afterwards
33. discovering 3-way calling and racking up a huge bill after being told by a friend it’s free
34. after discovering 3-way calling, picking up your phone and realizing you’re on the line with your whole entire grade six class
35. gel pens
36. spider writers
37. lizzie mcguire
38. spellbound - the only game on that shitty computer in your classroom
39. KID PIX
40. cross country canada
41. math circus 
42. tamagotchi’s
43. the discovery of chat rooms 
44. double dutch
45. furby’s! 

Everyone has been asking for details of the accident I was in last night.
I suppose this is the easiest way to address it.

Last night, at around 7:00pm, I left my house for work.
I entered an intersection at a green light to turn left, and I was the first car on my side of the road to enter it. I take this path to get to work multiple times a week and the traffic can get pretty heavy around this time of night coming from the opposite direction. I’m always very cautious at this intersection, always waiting till I’m 100% sure that I can turn and the traffic has slowed down.

The traffic finally slowed to a point that I saw headlights but they were far enough away that I was positive I had enough time to turn. However, there was a small, faint, single headlight in the right turning lane across from me, but that seemed to be far away as well. Keep in mind, it’s pitch black at this time of night.

I make my turn.

I completely finished my turn, apparently as the light had turned yellow - which I was not aware of myself but the witnesses were. I had completely finished my turn, driving out of the intersection on to the next street… and that’s when it happened.

I heard a thud.
I knew it wasn’t a hit animal thud, or a car thud.
It was that single, faint light.
It was a cyclist.

I drove off to the side of the road and turned on my hazards, frantically searching for my cell phone - which in my essentially empty purse, I couldn’t find because I was so frantic.

I open my door and I turn around to face the intersection.
There he was.
A young cyclist, maybe in his mid/late twenties was lying beside a mangled bicycle.
He had flown into my passenger side and was now lying in the middle of the street.

Another young man was standing beside him with a cellphone as he slowly helped the cyclist walk out of the street and laid him down on the grass. An older man came over to me and put his arm around me, trying to calm me down. He said he used to be a doctor and that the situation looked worse than it probably was. 

Before I knew it the ambulances had arrived and I was back at my mangled car being questioned by a police officer, frantically looking for the registration in the mess of a glove compartment thanks to my mothers chocolate bar wrappers.

The entire passenger side of the car was bashed in to the point you would think a car had hit it. The cyclist was flying at the speed of light it seemed, from both the thud and the physical damage. The right mirror was missing as well. I had then run the battery completely dry having turned on the light to try to find my cell phone which was just the icing on top of a perfect evening.

I was brought home by my parents around 9:00pm with the police officer to drop by later on with a report after speaking with the man at the hospital and some witnesses with my parents going back to the scene to jump the totalled car. 

Once my parents came back, they said that witnesses had said I did everything correct and I was not at fault which had made me feel so much better - because I am a careful driver. I don’t text, I don’t blast music, and I am always paying attention.. always. 

The police officer arrives around 11:00pm and instead of giving us a report, he issues me a ticket. He had spoken to the man at the hospital, who apparently hadn’t even been seen yet despite being brought over by an ambulance because he was deemed to be fine in terms of broken bones and internal injuries (by this point in time we are hoping if anything was severe we would have been notified by now). The man’s account of the story was that he was riding and the light was green, looked down, looked up the light was yellow and suddenly I was in his path, but the officer put it in a more severe way, which you would expect anyone in the cyclists situation to give. 

The witnesses, so I’m told, as well as my parents, believe that he was trying to make the yellow light.

Now, remember. I had seen this faint, single light in the right turn lane on the opposite side. However, the collision happened in the area of the intersection where he must have been in the lane to go straight.

My father seems to believe he was turning, saw me, realized it and decided to go straight instead and hit me.. but he would obviously not reveal this being as it would make him be in the wrong.

In the end, I was charged with un-safe turning and a $110 ticket.

The car will cost approximately $2200 to fix with insurance covering all of it but $500 with our insurance also covering the cost of his bike that it would be now (as opposed to if he bought it two years ago) if he decides to ask for that, however his home insurance will cover it as well.

The police officer told us last night that as far as they know, he has a few bruises and scrapes and will be sore for awhile but that’s all they believe his injuries to be… however, I’m a bit concerned being as he was not wearing a helmet and I have no idea if he hit his head.

The money issue is covered, and the health of this man is okay as far as we know.

However, I am being haunted by this experience.
Just when I’ve caught myself up in a task, I see it all happen in my mind.
I’m back in my car again, I’m turning, and then I hear that awful, awful thud.
This image just keeps playing in my head over and over again and I can’t escape it.

I’m at a state where I still can’t believe it happened, but I know it did. 
The more that image plays in my head the more surreal it feels, but I know it happened.

That thud will forever haunt me. 

I wrote that status last night in hopes you would comment, which would be the first words you’ve said to me in four and a half years. It was about Young and the Restless, which we would talk about forever together, which is one of the things I complained about missing in you. You commented. My heart is slightly happier. I wish there was an easy way to start talking to you again like we used to. 

I miss my friend so much…