Is Everybody OK?

It is when you try to write something every day that you fully realize just how Steepleton Saturday night dull your job is. Most of the guys I work with do not speak English unless they are addressed by a foreman who does not speak their language so I do not get a lot of stories out of those motherfuckers. The rest of the guys are so hungover they can rarely do more than grunt like pigs who ate a trough of fermented stew the previous evening.

So I was real happy to see what looked like a decent one car accident at the side of the highway this morning. I pulled over carefully, grabbed my first aid kit and hustled back a few hundred yards to see if there was any gore I could report on. When I got to the spun out car there were five or six of the many people once native to India who have settled in Canada. I asked, "Is everybody ok?"

They all looked at me blankly. Either none of them spoke English or they had all hit their heads so hard they were speechless. I pointed at several of them and made the universal sign for broken. This they understood. They looked pretty fucking happy to be standing at the side of the highway on a dark, cold winter morning. One of them finally spoke, "We are very well. You were very kind to stop but we could not be better."

I asked, "Do you need to phone for help?"

The same individual, pulled out his cell phone to let me know they had already called their tow truck driving buddies.

The first time I jumped out of my car to check out the human consequences of a car accident I was nervous as Hell. Now I look forward to it. In the past such occasions as this have happened in bunches. So drive carefully and if it is me who attends first to your compound fracture or broken skull try and remember to offer to take me out for a fucking beer sometime.

And once again, a warning to those of you who plan to drive to Dope City for a holiday: we cannot drive worth a fuck around here.