Tales from the Lost Months: Jury Duty Ice Road Trucking/Subaruing Blues (PART 3)

While waiting for the wife, I got out of my car to go survey the damage. I had to walk down to Mr. Costello’s driveway and back along it to get a view of the passenger side of the car. It did indeed appear that I had struck the large rock there with the front right corner of the vehicle that would explain the sudden stop on a dime it had done, which hitting only the bush would not have. One of the body panels in the front had popped loose and there was some definite cratering of the bumper, but the headlight was not smashed. I had no idea what the internal damage might be, but the car was still running just fine and no warning lights had popped up. Could it be only cosmetic? They do make Subarus pretty stout, and all.

I didn’t fully appreciate it until later, but it was probably a good thing I went off the road at the particular spot I had. While the rest of the right side of the road along the blind curve was dotted with varying sized rocks and shrubs, there were places where I could have gone between them and possibly off the edge of the road, over the embankment into Mr. Costello's driveway. Potentially, this might have rolled the car. Given enough momentum sent me over the far edge of his driveway and down the rest of his very steep front yard into the trees far below. Or, if I’d gone off further down the road, near the mouth of his driveway, I might have continued over the edge of the same hill there, crashing through trees on my way down toward the stream bed. For all intents, I’d crashed perfectly.

I knocked on Mr. Costello’s door to let him know I was lodged in his shrubbery. He wasn’t home at that moment, but drove up a few minutes later, about the same time the wife arrived on foot. He'd been out driving his own wife to work.

“Sorry about your irises," the wife said.

Mr. Costello was pretty jovial about the whole thing. He was just glad I was all right and that we’d let him know about the crash, as an earlier neighbor had slid down the hill and taken out his mailbox. They'd not left so much as a note about it, either. He told us not to worry about the plants, or the spruce, or the rock, because he and his wife had been planning on tearing it all out to put in new railroad tie supports at the base of the embankment next summer and we’d just got a head start on the demo for the job.

With Mr. Costello’s help, we pulled all the smaller rocks from beneath my car and then made a couple of attempts at getting the Subaru unstuck from the spruce and back on the road. All such efforts, however, resulted in the car sliding further down the embankment, so we decided to leave it for the tow truck.

There on the spot, I phoned my insurance company. I don’t want to say their name here, so as not to sully their otherwise stellar standing in my opinion, but it’s the same Texas-based insurance company to which patron and loon Barbara Turdmurkle once drove me nigh unto insanity in her attempt to have me fax them something, during my days at the "liberry." Normally, the company is a delight to deal with on all levels, and I stand by that. However, for some reason the rep I spoke to that morning was less than the usual picture of efficiency. Perhaps she was simply not functioning with a full cup of coffee. Or maybe it was because they knew they would soon have to pay for something, rather than just letting me shovel money in their direction.

Naturally, there were 500 questions in the claims process. I understand this, but wish I'd had the forethought to wait until I was back in my warm home to answer them, rather than in the 10 degree driveway. Some questions were straightforward, such as “How fast were you going?” (Answer: “Well, I’d say probably 5 to 8 mph when I started down the hill, then much faster after I started sliding.”) However, the lady I spoke with, being a Texan, couldn't seem to wrap her mind around a key concept in the road-construction philosophy often used here in the Mountain State.

“Did the accident happen on a four lane road or two lane road?” she asked.

“It happened on a one lane road.”

“So, a one WAY road,” she said.

“No, a one LANE road,” I corrected.

“A one lane road?”

“Yes, a ONE. LANE. ROAD.” There followed a long pause, so I added, “Cars move in both directions, but I assure you it is a one lane road.”

“But... if cars move both directions, it’s a two lane road.”

I had to pause myself, then, and take a nice freezing breath of air before explaining an inherent truth about West Virginia: it’s a state geographically made of mountains, hills and hollers and the vast majority of the non-highway and non-city street back and side roads are basically one lane strips of asphalt which, if you’re lucky, will accommodate two vehicles passing one another due to the gravel shoulders on either side, provided the vehicles are moving slow enough.

“Believe me,” I said, “no one’s flying down this road. The posted speed limit is 20 and I was only going about 5 until I started sliding.”

She still didn’t seem to believe me, but wisely let the matter go. Focus then turned to the fact that my policy does not come with rental car reimbursement, so I’d have to pay for that should I need one. Eventually the questions were all answered, she said they'd be in touch soon and she then put me through to roadside assist to arrange a tow truck to haul my car to the local Subaru dealership, hereafter to be known as King Subaru (not its real name).

The wife and I hoofed it back home so I could await the call from roadside assist and she could finish getting ready for shopping. She offered to hang around until after the tow came, in case I wanted to go with her, but I said I was done for the day and would likely just go back to bed and hope for better things on the morrow.

A bit later in the morning, the courthouse lady called back to tell me that I was being placed into Jury Group 2. She also reiterated how I was always welcome to phone them and bow out should weather or mere inconvenience present itself. However, group 2 would not be needed for service until the following Monday.

"Oh. I might have a car by then," I said.

I could not have been more wrong.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Actual Jury Duty: Day 1

I guess it had to happen sooner or later. Yes, indeed, 29 days since starting my two month term as a member of the local jury pool, today I finally set foot in the court house for the first time. My lack of service thus far does not seem to be due to the events from the ongoing Juice-Without-A-Car saga, as I had transportation during most of that period in one form or another. I suspect instead that weather and holiday delays were the major culprits.

Since the weather has been clear for about a week, though, and since the holidays were over, I was pretty sure there was no avoiding today's scheduled service. This morning, while eating breakfast, I fished out my wallet to call the courthouse line, as instructed, to make sure court was still on. It was, so I finished up my food, kicked the dogs and cats out of the house, and headed in.

I found parking near the courthouse and started across the street toward it when I realized I had forgotten the name of the judge whose court I was to report to in a few minutes. My memory for names is awful. When I worked in the "liberry" I prided myself on being able to mentally match names to faces for the majority of our patrons. Since leaving, my skills have rusted so much that I can usually only recall the first letter of most people's names. And, in fact, that's all I could come up with for the judge. Good thing I'd written it on the back of my jury hotline card, which was in my wallet, which was... unexpectedly not in my back pocket. I'd evidently left it on the breakfast table. Shit.

I tried to phone the wife, who was off today, but she didn't answer either number. I decided I'd deal with it later and hoped they didn't require proof of identity. I passed through the metal detectors, asked the guard at the door where the courtrooms were, and then climbed three flights of stairs to get there. I'd hoped the judge's name would be listed somewhere, but no such luck. I noted, though, that one courtroom was labeled "Criminal" and the other "Circuit," which was the branch I was to report to. Sure enough, peering through the round windows in the swinging doors, I saw a large room filled with a bunch of dismal looking souls all seated on one side.

"You hear for jury duty?" asked a lady who'd walked up to the door.

"Yeah. I can't remember the judge's name, though."

She offered the correct name with the correct first letter. We went in and had a seat on the back bench behind all the dismal souls.

Soon enough, the clerk whose voice I knew from the jury hotline arrived and called roll. Most of us were present. She asked if anyone had any excuses and then put all the cards with our names into a box, which she shook vigorously for a while. Not knowing the process, I wondered if we'd be chosen from some sort of raffle. That didn't seem like something I'd learned in my 22 years distant, high school course Intro to Law, but whatever.

After 20 minutes, lawyery types began to arrive, as did a couple of people I thought might be witnesses. Then a bailiff entered and told us to stand as judge whatshisnose entered. The judge said some things about the trial, but I couldn't understand a lot of it because one of the latecomers behind me chose that moment to start a coughing fit. Great.

The judge then asked if there were any motions to be heard before the trial began and one of the attorneys asked to approach. Both attorney's and a man I assume was the defendant approached. I couldn't make out much of what they were saying, not only because of the cougher, but also because they were speaking in hushed tones. The phrase "refuses to testify" did come up. After a couple of minutes, the attorneys backed off and the judge announced that matters in the case had been settled out of court and it appeared they would not be needing our services after all. He offered that this sort of thing occasionally happened, due to a variety of factors, several of which he listed, but seeming to place special emphasis on the final example of people not being able to make up their minds. He told us we were still an important part of the proceedings that day, that we still needed to call the hotline after 4:30 to find out when we would next be needed, and that we would receive full credit for being there. We were then excused.

You have never seen a happier group of people that the formerly dismal souls leaving the courtroom. Everyone was grinning.

I just called the hotline. Looks like they won't be needing me until sometime after the 11th. I'm still willing to serve, but, the way things have been going, I would not be surprised if I don't receive any real jury time at all.

Tales from the Lost Months: Jury Duty Ice Road Trucking/Subaruing Blues (PART 2)

On more than one occasion, I’ve received advice from neighbors and friends as to the best method for traversing icy, hilly roads, specifically in our neighborhood. Mostly they advise sticking to graveled areas, which is wise enough. More than one, however, has advised that if your tires start to slide, put the car in a low gear and simply coast on down to the bottom of the hill, allowing the car’s lower gear to keep your slide a gradual one. These people, in my estimation, are EFFing crazy.

As I started down the hill I was already in the lowest gear the car could manage and going probably 5 mph. Once the tires began to slip, I first began pumping the brakes to no avail. Then, remembering the above advice from the above multiple neighbors and friends, I just tried my best to aim for the center of the road and slide gradually and safely down it. This might have even worked, except that our road curves to the left. So as I turned the wheel to try and meet that curve, I found that no such directional change was being accepted by the road and I was sent skidding off the right side of the road and into the landscaping of our neighbor, Mr. Costello. His home is located in the hillside below the blind curve, with his driveway beginning where the incline of the blind curve begins. Further down the hill from Mr. Costello's driveway is his very steep and long yard of an angle and distance which you really wouldn't want to go sliding down under any set of circumstances. Perhaps fortunately for me, though, there is a steep embankment between the blind curve road and his driveway and house, which Mr. Cos has landscaped with plants and large rocks to help prevent people from sliding off the hill into his garage. My car went off the road into the landscaping closer to the mouth of his driveway, near the lower part of the curve's incline. The car rolled across probably 10 or 12 rocks of 5 to 8 inches in diameter each, a number of snow-coated plants and then ended its journey by smashing into a large spruce bush which masked the presence of a very large boulder of probably three feet in diameter.

The car, as you might expect, came to an abrupt halt when it met the rock. My glasses were flung from my face, but the impact failed to deploy any airbags. The string of curses that had been pouring from my mouth all the way down the hill intensified and then peaked in that moment. I managed to put the car in park and find my glasses. It was at that point that I was able to look through the windshield and saw Mrs. Hazard, the neighbor I’d been trying to avoid running over, safely standing just beyond Mr. Costello's driveway, staring back at me with concern.

I rolled down the window and in a bright, cheerful and probably unhinged tone, called out “Good morning!”

“Are you all right?” she called.

Nothing felt hurt, beyond a sprain in my pride. “Yeah.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ll call my wife and then insurance.”

Mrs. Hazard said that if I turned out to need help to just honk and she’d come running back. Then she returned to her walk out and was soon around the level curve of that section of road.

Amazingly, my cell phone had bars. (We're within sight of two cell towers and get the worst reception from our house.) I phoned the wife.

"Hey, I crashed the car," I said. I gave her the short version of it and told her where I was lodged. She said she’d be down as soon as she could. Fortunately, she meant by foot, which was a relief because I’d had visions of her car sliding into mine--or other cars, for that matter. Fortunately, I was pretty much off the road and out of the way, but that wouldn't help if someone came down and slid like I had.

Next up I called the court house to let them know that I would be, at the very least, late to jury duty, due to having driven into a rock. The lady asked if I was all right first, then said not to worry about it and someone would call me later to do my orientation over the phone. She then added that in the future, if the weather was bad, or if I was sick, or if it was just “inconvenient” for me to come to court, I could just phone them up and be instantly excused.

“THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOUR EFFING LETTER THREATEN TO SICK THE SHERIFF ON ME IF I DIDN’T SHOW UP?!” I screamed silently in my head.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Tales from the Lost Months: Jury Duty Ice Road Trucking/Subaruing Blues (PART 1)

Okay. Day one of the new year, so let’s start the blogging off proper with a Tales from the Lost Months episode featuring the story of my most recent unfortunate adventure: jury duty.

I'm happy to report that my experience with the jury duty process of jury duty has been extremely tame. In fact, in the 25 days I've officially been a part of the local jury pool I've not set foot in the courthouse once. This is because while I have no problems with actually serving on a jury, I managed to accidentally find out a surefire way to stay off of one, which is to drive one’s car into a very large rock on the way to serve.

Lemme back up.

I was summoned for jury duty a couple months back, with my jury term to begin December 6. I know jury duty is traditionally unpopular, but serving doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I’ve never served before and think it would be an interesting experience not to mention my civic and legal duty. I emphasize legal duty because the letter of summons I received did too, and made it pretty clear that my ass was to be in that courtroom on December the 6th or the sheriff was coming after me. In fact, the letter of summons strongly implied that should I even contemplate asking to be excused, no excuse under the sun would be acceptable up to and possibly including death itself (up to the judge’s discretion), unless I was over the age of 70 years or had a permanent disability or impairment, at which point serving would merely be optional. I didn’t see the need for such threatening language, but again I was more than willing to serve.

The weekend of December 4 and 5 was an icy one here in Borderland. We had snow on the ground, though not a tremendous amount. On the morning of Dec 6, however, I awoke to a nice thin blanket of the stuff, amounting to an inch or two on the roads and a bit deeper in the grass. This concerned me. Since moving to the mountain state in 2001, I’ve seen and driven in a lot of snow and am pretty comfortable with it. However, it takes me a couple of days to really get my snow legs back under me each year, driving wise. And I prefer to regain them on nice, level, snow and/or ice-covered pavement and not the hilly, steep, blind-curve-laden, rarely plowed roads of our neighborhood. However, after our ice-adventure-filled winter last year, I'd purchased a Subaru, which was, I had been assured, the vehicle of choice when traversing icy roads. On paper, I knew I should be fine to drive them, rusty snow skills or not.

The wife had a day off on this particular Monday, so she had some Christmas shopping planned and was eager to get an early start on it. She offered to give me a lift to the courthouse on her way to the mall, in case I didn't want to drive in the snow. My inner-wuss really wanted to accept the offer, but, being a big strong man, I told her it wouldn't be necessary.

Before I left, I called the court house to make sure they were still having court, secretly hoping they wouldn't. They were, though. Guess I had to go.

At 8:30 I went out to the car, giving myself plenty of time to make it to the courthouse no matter how slow I had to go. As I backed out of the garage, I noticed that one of my next door neighbors, Mrs. Hazard, was walking on the road below our drive in the process of walking out. Walking Out is the term we use around here for people who are unable to even get into the neighborhood because of the initial big icy hill found there, or who are rightfully afraid to risk the attempt of driving in and opt instead to park along the road immediately outside our neighborhood. They then hoof it in to their house (sometimes a considerable distance, depending how deep in they live) and then walk back out when they wish to leave. I’m embarrassed to say that it did not even occur to me to drive down and offer Mrs. Hazard a ride out. I was far too nervous about my own journey and my instinct was to give her a good couple of minutes to walk down the steep blind curve just below our section of the neighborhood. I didn’t want to risk sliding into her accidentally should my car start to slip on my way down the road.

After waiting, slowly drove down our long driveway, which is probably the steepest of the inclines we have to cover during any given trip. Sure enough, 2/3 of the way down, the tires started to slip and not even the Subaru’s all wheel drive could save me from sliding all the way to the bottom. I pumped the brakes the whole way down to no avail, failed to make the turn onto the road at the bottom and slid across and off the other side before stopping. Fortunately, it’s fairly level there, so I was able to drive back onto the road with no problem. But my nerves were already shot. Why the HELL hadn’t I taken the wife’s offer?!!

I then crept along to the top of the blind curve. I admit I was worried. I'd had very little ice driving practice in the Subaru before, since by the time I bought it last year the snow season was mostly over. It is only my terror, though, that I can use as an excuse for failing to do two obvious and important things. A) I should have driven with my right two tires off the edge of the road where there was some gravel in the shoulder. And B) I should have first pulled over to the side and got out to scout the hill itself to make sure someone had shoveled out some of the extra gravel the neighborhood purchases and keep in convenient piles next to the steep sections of the road. See, we're not a county road so we have no regular plow service. So we do what we can with the gravel and you’d be amazed at how much traction it can provide. What I quickly learned to my horror, though, was that no one had graveled the road that morning. And the way I learned this was by ever-so-slowly crept forward until I was pointed down the center of the one-lane road, whereupon, half-way down, all four tires lost any hope of traction and I began to slide very quickly in an unfortunate direction.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

We've Got Letters #2: Toys for Tots fundraiser

Almost by coincidence, we got another letter this week. This time it's from Lisa of coupon blog CouponMountain.com, one of the longtime blogs listed in the blogroll for my old blog Tales from the "Liberry."

Lisa writes in with word about a good cause:

The holidays are coming to a close, and hopefully the season was very merry for you. But for some kids, Santa doesn’t make a stop at their house. Which is where Toys for Tots comes in – helping provide thousands of toys for families in need. It’s really a wonderful program.

To help this great cause, CouponMountain.com (an online coupon code site) has pledged togive up to $50,000. But it’s up to you how much Toys for Tots will get. Because they’re going to give $1 for every Facebook Fan they have on Dec. 31.

So please – take a minute to log on and “Like” CouponMountain. Then pass it on.

How You Can Give $1 to Toys for Tots:

· Go to: www.Facebook.com/CouponMountain
· Select “Like”
· CouponMountain will donate $1
· Spread the word to your friends

We've Got Letters (a.k.a. "Where the EFF have you been, Juice?")

A reader named Chris has sent in an email inquiry. Chris writes...

I see we are past the 5 month mark on the last time you posted. Aside from some new home improvement project I can only think of 2 things that would keep a long time blogger away from their blog.

1. You have had a new baby.

2. You have discovered the joys of World of Warcraft.

If it's # 1 congratulations, if it's #2 tell me what server you play on so we can meet up sometime. lol

Seriously though where have you been? I miss your blog and I still check once a week to see if anything new has been posted.

Thank you for the letter, Chris. It made my day and gave me the kick in the butt to finally post something. Believe me, I'm well aware that it's been five months and it's really been bothering me. I've taught blogging workshops on two occasions and one of the major things I tried to impart to future potential bloggers was never EVER to abandon their blogs. I told them "If you want to stop blogging, be a man and say `I'm taking a break and maybe won't come back.' Don't just leave folks hanging." But that's precisely what I've done and which has been the guilty weight hanging over me for months now.

First things first: I'm not abandoning the blog and as of now will begin posting far more often. I have some material built up and it's time to get it out, not to mention several pretty major events in my life over the past couple of months.

To answer your specific questions: 1) Yes, we do have a baby. In fact, we have two. However, they're not human, so that's not a reason for failure to blog. And, 2), no, I've not yet joined WOW. I've avoided all the MMORPGs and video games in general precisely because I dearly love that sort of thing but it eats huge chunks of time. I used to be a big MUDder back in the early 90s, but eventually gave that up not only because the MUDs I played kept dying, but also because it was just killing my schoolwork. (Any DeathMud or HeroMud folks out there still? Lizard? Thundrcheez? Anyone?) However, the wife recently became addicted to OBLIVION IV for the PC, so barring a home gaming system purchase, it's not inconceivable that we could make the leap to WOW down the line.

As to where the EFF I've been... eh, mostly here. I've been doing more fiction and dramatic writing, which has led to an anthology publication as well as a couple of produced plays in 2010.

I think, though, that my blogging absence boils down to one major thing: the continuing MIA status of our cat Avie. When she first vanished in April, I was certain that we would find her soon enough. Either we'd find her during our searches of the neighborhood in which she vanished, or she'd get captured and taken to the pound where I was a daily visitor, or she would exhibit that pet-homing sense you hear about on occasion and her little kitty radar would guide her back home. And when she returned, I'd be able to post about it here and all would be right with the world. But, she never turned up and every time I thought to write a blog post the lingering question of Avie's status just depressed the hell out of me and sapped all energy for writing anything light, potentially funny or of importance to our lives. Her absence was just a dark hole and I didn't want to publicly get near the edge. This is not to say I've not written anything bloggy in the five months of down time. I've actually penned drafts of a few entries, but could never find my way to post them because of the kitty malaise. Which has been a shame, because the past few months have been pretty full of life-altering events, even beyond the two non-human babies we adopted. We've had health scares, health crises, automobile scares and crises, ongoing pet breed mysteries, and other stuff I'm sure I'll remember. Hell, I never got to tell the tale of our vacation in Florida, which is where we were when Avie escaped her cat-sitters. (I probably still won't tell that one, cause other than the ending that you already know, the trip was spectacular, nearly without incident, and therefore not all that dramatic.)

So, in addition to the ongoing current events of Borderland (including an impending home renovation project that I promise not to drag out as long as the last one), I've got five months of Lost Tales to mine. Which, I guess, means my new year's resolution is to spend more time blogging.

I'm back.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Actual Telephone Conversations Heard at My House #6

*RING*

ME-- (ANSWERS PHONE) Hello?

(SILENCE)

ME-- Hello?

MATT THE STONER TELEMARKETER-- Hello?

(PAUSE)

ME-- Hello?

MATT THE STONER TELEMARKETER-- Um, yeah. MR. AARON?

ME-- That's me.

MATT THE STONER TELEMARKETER-- Hi. This is Matt, with API.

ME-- Uh huh.

MATT THE STONER TELEMARKETER-- We just wanted to call to tell you we'd like to send you a $1000 online gift certificate.

ME-- I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I have a strict policy here of accepting no solicitation over the phone.

MATT THE STONER TELEMARKETER-- (PAUSE) Um... This isn't soliciting. (ANOTHER PAUSE) Um... what's soliciting?

ME-- Selling things over the phone.

MATT THE STONER TELEMARKETER-- Oh, no. We're not selling anything. I thought for a minute there you meant soliciting, like on TV shows... you know, like, with hookers.

(SILENCE AS I ALLOW THIS TO SINK IN)

MATT THE STONER TELEMARKETER-- Uh, hello?

ME-- Yeah, um, listen, this still sounds like something I'm not going to be interested in.

MATT THE STONER TELEMARKETER-- Oh, no, it's really great! It's...

ME-- You have a nice day, Matt.

*CLICK*

(Still not sure who API is. Maybe the American Petroleum Institute offering a bribe for a survey?)