Survivor Guilt

Yesterday turned out to be an incredibly long day at work - it was one of those days where meetings swallowed hours like I've been known to swallow Jaegermeister. Thinking back about it, I vaguely recall saying to one of the ADs, "At least the morning's open so we can get the banner layout done." No sooner had the words come out of my mouth than fourteen new messages slammed into my Outlook account, three of which were meeting requests. And one of those was a meeting about a meeting taking place later on that day.

Incredible.

So, I get through the day project by project, meeting by meeting. SockMama (back in favor - she let me play Halo 2 until I was about ready to pass out) picks me up and we head home. The ride was going smoothly, we were laughing and talking about our day, dealing with the constant idiots that insist on pushing their cars through left turn lights even when they have changed to red two cars ago. But things were going okay overall...all good.

And then it happened.

The evening night ahead of us lights up in a shower of blue and white sparks accompanied with a loud pop, and then a sea of haloed red taillights. Every streetlight, business and home were blackened, casting an eerie silence around us.

As we approach the intersection where we usually make a right, we encounter a fairly gruesome scene: a silver Toyota Camry lying on its side, propped up against a telephone pole, and there are people all around us pulling over, whipping out cell phones and running over to help.

SockMama begins to worry about the well being of the car’s occupants, asking if we should get out and help. This, of course, meant, “Stop the car. We need to help.”

Now, I don’t know what it was that blocked the intense severity of the situation out of my mind, but I (overly nonchalantly, by the way, as if to convey that everything was “fine, just fine”) decided to pull through the parking lot of the corner gas station in order to circumvent the traffic.

As I watched the drama recede in my rear view mirror, SockMama just kept looking at me with this incredulous look on her face; she literally couldn’t believe how easily I was able to (illegally) pull through that parking lot when people’s lives could be in danger.

In an attempt to recoup any credibility I had as a nice and decent person, I tried to explain to her that there was nothing we could have done, that the situation was being handled. “And besides, didn’t you see all those people running over to help? Those kids with the ‘Cheetos’ were on their cell phones and everything. Besides…I’m sure they’re…fine…just, uh, fine. I mean, we don’t even know how the car ended up that way.”

Because, after all, there are so many ways cars end up propped up against telephone poles.

God, I’m such an asshole.