Did you all have a nice Labor Day Weekend?
Good. Now, let’s talk about me and how I almost died.
My friend Erin drove into Sacramento on Saturday with her mom to lollygag around the State Fair for a few hours. They swung by our house afterward and we all hit Dos Coyotes for a late lunch. You know, the place with the decapitated head that I told you about last month?
The next day, a car drove through the restaurant. I couldn’t embed the video news clip, so you’ll have to click on the picture below if you want to watch it on Sacramento’s Channel 13 news site.
The table where we sat was right about where that car’s trunk is in the picture. WE COULD HAVE DIED!
* * *
Did you see what I did there? I gave that story way more meaning to my personal circumstances than was necessary in order to create a lot of drama. Not to mention a lot of attention and sympathy toward myself, which was completely unnecessary and undeserved.
Why do we do that? How many times have you or someone you know said things comparable to, “I almost took the cruise that hit the iceberg. That could have been me!” or, “Oh my God, I was on a Zeppelin flight just last week. That could have been me!”
There must be some psychological term for it, but I don’t know what it is, so I’m calling out to all my Psych major people to tell me what it is. In the meantime, I will call it Manufacturing Fate Where It Doesn’t Exist, or M-FWIDE, for short.
I knew someone who suffered from M-FWIDE. She managed to connect every single reported disaster to herself. The news would report a hurricane clear on the other side of the country and I would wait, and sure enough, she could still pull out something like, “We thought about going there for our vacation. Boy, it’s a good thing we didn’t. That could have been me!”
Are we actually impressing our friends when we brag about the coincidences in our lives? I mean, did you really think, “Holy Cow, Nanny Goats was sitting in the exact same place where that car is! That’s SO amazing! She’s lucky to be alive!” And then you go around telling all your friends that we’re BFFs, so that they will be impressed that you’re really really close to the person who almost got nailed by three thousand pounds of Volkswagen?
Really?
OK then, did I ever tell you about the time I flew on the American Airlines flight from L.A. to Chicago ON THE SAME DAY AS BUT THE FLIGHT PRIOR TO the one that O.J. Simpson took from L.A. to Chicago the night his ex-wife was murdered? Oh yeah. Totally true story.
P.S. If you didn’t get enough car-crashing-into-Sacramento-restaurants news, you can read or watch a story about someone who drove into a Starbucks, also on Sunday.
LOL, we DO do that, don’t we!?
Hmmm… so now, after having read this post of yours a few days ago, I can’t stop reading people’s rememberances of 9/11 and how they’ve linked them to themselves. (Pardon that awkward sentence, please.) I wonder why we do that…. does it somehow help us cope? Make us that much more appreciative of what we have? I don’t know.
I thought I commented on this – but now I don’t see it… And I can’t remember what I said… I’m going to blame my husband who always claims that he doesn’t shut down all of the windows I have open when he uses the computer (like I’m supposed to believe that an issue with flash shut down my internet or something!)
But yeah – you can either say that it’s ridiculous how people have to connect everything that happens to themselves OR you can say that it’s amazing how connected we all are… Depends on my mood. Either way, I think you’re a riot.
The funniest part of this post is that it is so true!! I had a coworker that used to do this ALL the time… drove everyone so totally crazy. We finally just started to interrupt her and continue our stories, or just walk away. When she tried to continue, we would all just look at her and say “un, yeah, anyway….” and then go on.
Have a great day!
i once went to home depot and nearly bought this potting soil that these two guys bought the next day and then ended up with a head cold.
Okay, I don’t know Tracy but, I love her “condition” and am going to use it OFTEN.
/T-TOSP & EMOTPA (taking totally odd shit personally and egregious misuse of the term “passive aggressive”)
Now, how to go about quietly letting all the Loonies I get stuck talking to, know they have such a serious condition and the only cure it to shut up and GET A LIFE. Hmmmmm.
LOL. So true. I’m sure I’ve done it.
OMG I TOTALLY DRANK STARBUCKS ONCE.
That could have been me.
was gonna write a blog post about close encounters and near misses but didnt, then i read this and thought “wow, that could have been me!”
“Manufacturing Fate Where It Doesn’t Exist, or M-FWIDE, for short.”
Now that is brilliant!
You are too funny! I am a recovering addict of “all-about-me-itis” It’s a though journey…
Ps. im glad it wasn’t you!
If you figure out a name for it, do please let us know. Because around here, we just call it, Rob-itis, after a sweet, but sometimes annoying relative with the same affliction. 🙂
Zeppelin flight?
Cruise with iceberg?
Jesus, woman.
How old ARE you?
This made me laugh. I know a few people who tend to be over-dramatic like this. Luckily I only have one “I could have died” story and I keep it to myself. Haha!
I think I smell a reality tv show pitch in this 🙂
xo
I know I am pretty awful without my coffee but I’ve never almost drove into a Starbucks. A McDonalds maybe but not a Starbucks, their coffee is too expensive. 😉
Well…why is it that these type of weird crashes don’t instigate musings of “I came this close to driving my car into a Starbucks during the full moon while I was in Sacto.” It’s always about almost becoming a victim.
In Sacramento, keep your head up & be prepared to leap outta the way.
First, let me say how relieved I am that you weren’t nearly killed in an accident that took place in the same epoch we share.
Second, did you know I nearly became a psychologist? It’s true, I was a psych major for my first year of college. That qualifies me to render an opinion about the syndrome you mentioned. It’s called PLEASE PAY ATTENTION ME, I’M IMPORTANT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE AND NOT AN INSIGNIFICANT SPECK OF DUST IN AN INFINITE UNIVERSE SYNDROME.
Curiously, the syndrome mostly affects humor bloggers.
P.S. — I think I was in Sacramento once, but I’m never going back. It’s too dangerous. I’ve nearly been there and nearly been killed in wild car crashes that nearly happened bunches of times.
Hey, I was almost in that car that came crashing into that (wait! Let me look back and find out again. . . ) that Dos Coyotes Restaurant! I know I’m from Jersey, but it could be, right??? I could have been there. . .
You are way too much girl. But I can trump you! I was in the air, travelling from Orlando to Philadelphia, on 9/11. Scary eh?
Hysterical!! Maybe you want to start a reality show about it!!
thanks for commenting on my blog!!
Does it count if I grew up in the town where Hurricane Katrina first passed over? And saw pictures of said house in the middle of the street a few days after the storm? Does that count?
Actually the term is “stop letting the goats drive.”
And where’s my pink frilly panties???!
man and to think i almost went to Antartica, and they had this avalanche. I heard a joke with that as the punchline, 10mins. earlier and coulda happened to me.
Holy car wreck! That COULD have been you.
I’m so glad it wasn’t but now I am wondering if I should be immortalizing the ink pen in honor of the occasion.
Wow! That must have really put your nanny goat panties in a twist to have come so close to being run down. And to have missed the OJ flight? Just think… it might have changed the course of history had you been on the same flight. OJ would have been so entranced by looking through your album of nanny goat pictures that he might have felt compelled to take you out to dinner after the flight to learn more about nanny goat fashions, which might have caused him to miss surprising his wife and her guest at home. All for the want of a nanny goat.
Wow! A lady was run over last week while standing in front of her house. She died. Just today I was in front of my house checking the mail when suddenly a car passed by! I did receive a couple of really cool pens in the mail though along with a great looking picture of a goat in panties. Thanks!
My mother does something similar but no less annoying. Anything that happens to anyone we know is a reflection on her. For instance, if one of us gets sick — my goodness! what will this do to her?!
Hmm, guilty. Thanks for stopping by my blog!
Oh my Gosh–it could have been you! You must be living right! (That’s the excuse we Southerners give for surviving near-misses.)
I’ll ask the city-girl daughter what the clinical term is for always associating yourself with catastrophic events–she’s a Psych major.
Thanks for visiting, hope you’ll return. The (historic) pictures I posted are of Randolph College in VA.
I’m doing Gender Studies.
Why didn’t he just aim for the head? It’s already severed, who would notice?
As a matter of fact, the same thing almost happened to me. Only the car was bigger and the restaurant was much nicer and I really wasn’t there that day but we had seriously considered going.
It’s like we’re spiritual kin or somethin. I feel so much closer to you now, knowing that both of us have narrowly avoided death.
I love that old George Carlin bit where he says:
“Morty died last night”
“You’re kidding, really, I was just thinking about him” ”
“Yeah, well, it didn’t help”
Peace – Rene
LOL awesome.
These people are similar to the “Me Too’s”.
You know the ones where you tell this totally original/crazy story that couldn’t possibly be duplicated and they’re all “OH EM GEE…ME TOO!”
Then they continue to rattle off their story…like you care. 😀
Even though your post didn’t come out and say “I hate Tracy O’Connor because I am jealous of her” that is clearly what you meant in your passive aggressive way.
/T-TOSP & EMOTPA (taking totally odd shit personally and egregious misuse of the term “passive aggressive”)
geeze, sure glad your nanny goat butt didn’t get squished! People surely realize if they are in the right gear, and if they brakes are bad, don’t they? but what do I know, I thought today was the 24th of September and this was inadvertently on 11 reports!!!
Whenever we go to the zoo, I’m all
OM-I-GAH..that goat could totally be sisters with the one that was featured on Goat thing of the day!
You should just hang out with goats.Goats don’t do that,but it is hard to get one into a Tex-Mex restaurant,at least a goat that is not on the menu.I think that may be some kind of goat discrimination….
Whew, so glad you are safe, after such a near brush with death…
And to think, if you’d been on OJ’s flight, he might’ve hidden the knife in your bag and you could’ve been framed for the murder, so glad you were on the earlier flight there too!
Hope the rest of your weeks is less-life-threatening than your labor day!
You crack me up!
OMG did you hear about the time that I was on a train sitting next to the person that was on the plane after the infamous Hudson crash? ha ha
I believe it is because we are all wanting to stretch our 15 minutes of fame. Don’t we all know someone who is a one-upper? Someone who if you told this story to would then tell you how they were sitting at that table 1 hour prior to the crash…..so as to make it more relevant……..whatever!
Have a great day!
Counterfactual thinking? I thought it was called narcissism. Or inflated self importance. Maybe inflated ego?
But dude, glad you picked the right day to go. I mean, it’s one thing to ask for as much natural light as possible. Now you can ask for patio seating.
I call it ‘wishful thinking’ even though I know that’s very wrong. In so many ways.
Wow! I once knew a goat who knew a goat who knew a goat that got killed for eating. How awful is that?!
heh heh
Your stickers are in the mail!
The term is “counterfactual thinking”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_thinking