Sometimes, the stars align perfectly, along with the planets, while the moon is in the proper phase. This is when the illogical becomes logic, the impossible comes into being, and we witness something that wouldn’t make the script of even the zaniest movie because we’d all call bullshit on it and walk out of the theater. Here’s my moment:
When I was a senior in high school just west of Austin (LET’S GO CHAPS), I was also a volunteer firefighter for the local fire department. One Saturday night, while I was sleeping at the fire station at about 2 AM, we got toned out for a auto collision call. The dispatcher said, as we were getting out of bed and into our clothes (sorry ladies, we did actually wear clothing under our bunker gear), “this will be a one car accident, car vs house, at 123 Mogul Ave” (not actual address, of course). I knew this road, because some of my friends lived off of it. It is a steep downhill road lined with homes with a cross street that runs across it about 75 yards from the bottom of the hill, which the street then makes an immediate 70 degree left hand turn. The cross street makes a sudden level spot which, if taken at a high enough speed, would make a vehicle lose control and not be able to make the turn at the bottom of the hill.
Before I had even left the bunk room, I turned to my friend and said that the accident was involving Bob Smith’s (not real name) truck. He snickered, because no description of the vehicle had been made, and the odds of me being right were ridiculously astronomical.
You see, Bob Smith was a grade under me, and was a prince among the children of Austin’s most well-healed 1%. His father’s family owned half of the car dealerships in Central Texas, and this kid would literally get a new truck every 3 months. The one he had at that moment was a 1995 Chevy Z-71 Extended Cab Flareside 4x4, with an 8" suspension lift and 40-something inch Super Swampers on it. It was as austentatious (pun intended) as anything else in the student parking lot at our school, making it the most famous truck around.
So as we pulled up to the scene, we all saw a white Chevy monster truck sitting in the terraced lawn of this home at the bottom of the hill. I was 100% correct on the truck, but Bob wasn’t there. We were told that he had apparently gotten drunk and his two also intoxicated friends had decided to take his truck out to see if they could make the turn after hitting that particular bump going across Mogul Avenue at a speed of 60 mph. They could not.
NOW HERE’S THE “AGAINST ALL ODDS” PART:
The truck had done a lot of damage to the front yard, which was terraced downhill to the home from the street. The stone walls that made up the terraces had ripped the bottom of the truck to shreds, bent the frame, and torn out most of the drivetrain from the engine back. But it didn’t actually hurt the house it was touching.
But you know what it did do?
The truck had come to a rest at the perfect angle, at the perfect speed, that the front bumper was touching only one part of the house:it pressed the doorbell button in just enough to make it constantly ring. Ding Dong... Ding Dong... Ding Dong... Ding Dong... That’s what made the homeowners come to the door to find out that a truck had come through their front lawn. They opened their door to stare at the grill of a spoiled party kid’s stolen brodozer.
That’s my story. What’s yours?