Hello everybody.
It is Thanksgiving in America. When the pilgrims gave thanks and we do too. Cause giving thanks is good.
I'm thankful for my family. My friends. Video games, especially SEGA for making games that give me some sanity. The guys at the OutRun Online Arcade board. Our armed forces, police officers, firefighters, and emergency personnel who go through hell to keep society normal. Our country and the freedoms we have at this time. The New Orleans Saints winning the Superbowl. Not having to go to school for a few days. Oh and Sega games, again, let it be known.
Try reading 1 Chronicles 16 from the Bible for good verses on thankfulness.
I'm tired of seeing all these commercials about Black Friday before Thanksgiving was even here. Just pissing me off. Like I don't want to see some little Santa elf dude or a Radio Shack superhero to tell me what to buy. Now Black Friday sounds like "fun" but I'm broke right now. Case in point, I hate 95% of the commercials on TV. Those Geico and Ray Lewis Old Spice commercials are funny though, good times... So is The Most Interesting Man in the World, what a pimp.
Now we're talking about thankfulness, well one thing we take for granted is our health--our lives. It infuriates me to no end to hear about how everyone is depressed and that they can't do anything. Well look, I have opposable thumbs, I can see, hear, walk, and so forth. That I'm thankful for because I can still drive a car. But imagine if I didn't have one of the following or worse, I was dead.
Let me tell you a few stories. This was way back, when I was around six years old (1994). I was riding my bike without a helmet and fell on the concrete road. Now this wouldn't be so bad in itself, but there was this groove sticking out to form a ditch that I hit which speared the top of my head. All I can remember beforehand was crying profusely until I blacked out.
So my parents hauled me to the hospital. They learned that I had fractured my skull. OUCH indeed. So I was unconscious for three days. The doctors ran some tests on me in the meanwhile. They told my mom that if I didn't regain consciousness in the next few hours that they'd have to do something drastic to me. So basically, my mom was crying, watching over me, praying I would wake up. She prayed "Lord, if you wake this boy up, I'll see to it that he'll do Your will." She gets up to wash her face then comes back to see me rise from the pillow seemingly normal. My parents bought me a GameBoy and I left the hospital a day later. That's how it went down according to my parents.
Now I'm a Christian. I believe in God, Jesus, Heaven, and so forth. I just wonder exactly how close I was to death and what it would've been liked if I had actually died. Wouldn't it have just been better if I died and went to Heaven right away instead of having to put up with all this crap? Going to school, getting in fights with people who don't like me, complaining about the miserable state of video games, and watching as the world goes through its usual cycle of mutinies. How would history have changed if I were not here? Everyone asks that question. I guess we're alive for a reason so take it, it's a gift from God.
If a skull fracture wasn't bad enough, add in a car collision. This was about three years ago. (about 2007) I'm on the highway coming home from school, it's daytime, and I'm driving carefully in my little blue car, not over the speedlimit or anything. All of a sudden this green sedan in front of me came to a dead stop. Now I thought this guy was slowing down a little, but then I realized "Oh no, he's really going to stop." So I slam the brakes assuming I had ABS but no, I didn't. Assume the position. WHAM, hit the guy in the back at about 30-something MPH as my car flopped to the left onto the grass median.
So there's this elderly couple across the road who wrecked. Now at this time, I didn't know how bad the damage was to my car, so I cruised over. Surprisingly, there was no damage to each car. Hell, even the music on the CD I was playing didn't skip. No airbags too. We just about walked away unhinged. So I can say I was in a highway wreck, but with no damage whatsoever. Now that's just weird. Even if I didn't die, I could've been severely injured someone, even myself. It's just damn weird.
Now, you think one wreck was bad? How about a wreck and a near-wreck? So this is two years ago (one year after the first wreck, about 2008) and it's late. I just got done taking one of my final exams for the semester, it was late and raining hard on my trip home. And whaddya know, the person in front of me pulls the "dead stop" trick AGAIN. No, I'm dead serious, these people think it's appropriate to go from 70 to 0 mph in a highly-congested road. So I have a cushy space from him, but because of the rain, I didn't realize I was about to hit him right away. Step on brakes!
Thankfully, I avoid hitting him but once again, lack of ABS bites me in the ass as I slip sideways on the highway. Oh dear God, I'm going to get in a wreck for sure as I shout "OH BOY!!" I'm thankful for two things--one, that I spun clockwise (so traffic would've hit from the passenger side on the right and give me a cushion--American car we're talking about) and two, that there were no cars behind me at all. So I just cruised off like nothing happened. I just wonder if the guy that slowed down noticed me. Probably not! Thanks for nearly getting me killed, jerk.
Let's see, one, two, three life-changing bullets dodged. Now say what you want--call it divine intervention or dumb luck but I'm alive and I have to be thankful. There's still much more stuff for me to do. Hey, I still have this blog and even if you don't agree with me on anything, I hope this has changed SOMEONE for the positive. That I'm thankful for too. And REMEMBER TO WEAR YOUR SEATBELT, DRIVE DEFENSIVELY, AND OBEY ALL TRAFFIC LAWS.
Anyway, as an aspiring race car driver, I can safely say that I've been in a hospital for major surgery, a spinout in traffic and a wreck. All while driving the same car, one that I rubbed on the side of my fence too (it was a rare accident but I got it fixed). Balls to the wall, I say. I'm never gonna give up on that blue car so that I'm thankful for too.
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