First of all can I tell you that the best, the absolute best place to have a car accident in is right infront of the offices of C! Magazine on Sedeno street. And that is precisely what happened to me today. which makes me the luckiest motorist in the entire universe.
So there I was minding my business, I had just turned from Valero Street into Sedeno...I was daydreaming about the many bills I had just paid in the banks along LPLeviste Street (still hate doing it online)...and then...BANG!!!.. a huge grey monstrosity of an armoured truck suddenly came out of nowhere and started kissing the left side of my car...and it wouldn't stop!! The kissing was quite.. passionate as it shattered my side mirror and left a HUGE dent on my left side.
And then silence. I sat inside my car and didn't
know what to do for a good five, ten minutes. In the meantime the traffic was building up, and I could feel the fury of the other motorists, how they must have hated me for spoiling their Thursday lunch (they had all just probably come from lunch I suppose, on their way back to their offices. Sedeno street is the ONLY way out of Salcedo Village into Paseo. And I was queen of that street for the moment, blocking everyone's passage.) I didn't want to step out of the car because then they would all see - Ay BABAE PALA. KAYA PALA. See? they would immediately think it was MY fault. I didn't even
look like I was a street-smart kind of girl because I was in a stupid dress and heels. To think that this was MY FIRST ACCIDENT! Excuse me, I am proud to say I think I am one of the better female drivers that has travelled the streets of Manila. Parallel parking, blindfolded -- two seconds. Esquinitas, mane-obras, and all sorts of tricky situations -- piece of cake. Singit, wedging, overtaking, you name it...I do all these on auto pilot, you know, with brain at rest. AND.. I have NEVER bumped, scraped, sidesw
iped, made 'sagi' any piece of moving or non-moving metal in all my 23 years of driving. Have never hurt a street child, never even run over a balut or sampaguita vendor's tsinelas.ANYWAY.... The cops finally arrived, the driver of the van got out. While I - after carefully checking my lipstick - finally stepped out of the car in all my female glory AND who should I see but an angel! ...no, two angels! Kevin Limjoco and Mayette Asis of C! magazine! I f
ound out that C! mag's offices were just in the building upstairs, and as I looked up, I saw an entire tropa of C! guys waving from the balcony! And there was James Deakin clicking away. Oh what fun! The accident turned into a comedy...a fashion pictorial as I gamely posed against the hood of my car.. Deakin, who has taken pictures of the most beautiful cars in the world,
found himself suddenly focusing on a sad looking 16-year old toyota.Mayette, Kevin, James and some other guys were there with me throughout as I spoke with the cops, they offered me coffee, they photocopied my documents, kept asking if I was alright, I was never left alone even for a second .... Kevin spoke with the cops, he checked the sketch that was made to see that everything was fair.. And oh the photographs!! The photographs which I later on submitted to the police station were all "photos courtesy of James Deakin" --- beautiful aerial shots taken from their balcony, the print out was as big as a double spread ad, with little insets showing more photos of the car close up. It was almost like a page from their magazine.
I felt babied, I felt cared for, I felt protected. And that's very very important when you have your first car accident.
I said goodbye to the C! guys when I had to leave for the station, since Mang Rod was with me anyway (Toddy sent him after he got my SOS call). And Kevin handed me their July issue, something to read while waiting, he said...and what should I see featured on the cover but a Z4!! Sigh..that shoe-ka-han episode still haunts me.
At the station, I met up with the driver and we both did our statements...AND I ended up giving him a sermon on Karma and the Ten Commandments and Thou Shalt Not Lie and Gulong ng Palad... BECAUSE he LIED in his!! He said I bumped him...which was so totally NOT TRUE! So after I went on and on about his karma and how 'malas' it was to lie, the driver just got fed up and asked for another blank form and totally re-did his statement according to how I wanted it. hehehehe...
What a wonderful non-boring day it was today!! You know, sometimes harrowing experiences are meant to happen, but I think before they reach me, they go through some giant filter in the sky and get mixed up with bits of comedy, excitement and a generous dose of...angels. And that's exactly what God sent to me today during my first car accident, C!s angels!
1 comment:
Hey Malu, you should have let him burn your car or destroy it completely so you could collect the insurance! (I assume you do have insurance?)
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