My car.
I love this car. 1993 Park Avenue. It had electric windows, seats, sunroof. Leather heated seats, car alarm. The rear view mirror switched from day to nite by itself. The headlights had a delay timer, so that I could park the car, and walk up the sidewalk to the front door, lit up by the car, and then it'd turn off by itself. I'd think it, and the car would do it. I called it my Magic Car. Which went well with my Magic Money, the disability check that appeared in my bank account each month. Which was only appropriate, because it was the back pay from disability that bought the car, $3000.00 cash. My son and daughter-in-law helped by sending $500.00 too. Me and this car were a match made in heaven.
The day was October 5, 2004.
I was leaving Ruidoso, New Mexico, after visiting ReikiMan for a week.
I headed north, when I took a wrong turn. No big deal, it was still in the right direction, just a different route. I was happily listening to the local news, watching the BEEUTEEFUL scenery, and the odd-looking sky. Not odd looking as in ominous, but as in "interesting".
It was bright and shiny sunny day, with one cloud with just a tad of darkness in it. It was shaped like God's hand with a finger pointing down at the town of Socorro, New Mexico. (Update: The finger pointing was exactly like half the painting in the Sistine Chapel. Okay, so now I know it wasn't God's finger pointing down, it was Adam's finger) Like I said, interesting, not ominous or scary looking at all. I passed a sign that said Socorro was 4 miles away. It drizzled a little rain, and then suddenly, literally, within about 30 seconds, I couldn't see the semi-truck in front of me, which had been about 4 car lengths ahead of me. I immediately pulled over, hoping to hell I didn't run into it. I called SanFranMan to tell him about the Finger Accusing Cloud, but got distracted by the baseball-sized hail and the sound of breaking glass. I forgot to talk, as I was a tad bit hysterical cause my dogs were in the back seat, in their crate, howling. Not realizing it, I'd left the cell phone on, so SFM did hear the howling and the THUMP THUMP THUMP of the hail pounding my car. It sounded like this:
It sounded like this. Exactly like that ... only... in person it was 10 times worse.
I could NOT figure out the breaking glass sound, until I remembered I had a sunroof. I still wasn't used to having a car with a sunroof, so breaking glass on top of the car truly confused me, specially when I could see and hear the front and rear windows cracking more and more every second, but it wasn't making the sound of broken glass over my head.
Obviously, these pictures are after the fact. SFM replaced the sunroof with a plywood roof, and we caulked in the edges to keep the rain out. Replacing the sunroof ran about $1200.00.
Back to the storm.
I saw a hailstone come thru the back window and bounce on top of the dog crate. I tried to turned the car at a different angle, as the hail was hitting my front windshield head on, rather than the back window over the dog crate. I was sure it was going to shatter on my lap and slit my throat and I'd die a bloody death right there on I-25 North. So I inched the car at a 90-degree angle to the freeway, and promptly slid down in the mud, the blood and the beer. Later on, when the storm was over and when my life was done flashing before me, I noticed a very large culvert with raging water that I could have easily slid into and drowned - about 10 feet behind where I went down in the dirt. Literally, I am lucky to be alive.
Meanwhile, the back window completely shattered OUT, GONE, covering the dogs in glass inside their crate. It looked like this car.
The front windshield was cracking EVERYWHERE. The dogs were howling. The rain was pouring in from the broken sunroof on all four corners, and I was trying to conduct flood control with mugs, and moving all the stuff in my front seat out of the way. I had a BUNCH of herbal pain control (if you know what I mean) and every time I'd find a new hiding place, the rain would pour down on it. The dogs were just staring at me, with the most helpless look on their faces, but I knew if I talked to them, they'd jump around in the glass, so I ignored them as best I could. That was the worst part.
It was scary. It was really scary. Literally, baseball sized. (I was relieved to hear the news later that night said the same thing - it wasn't all in my head).
It lasted about 20 minutes with no let-up. It was dark, wet, and I couldn't breathe cause of the claustrophobic feeling. I would have had a panic attack, but I was too stunned and worried about the dogs to have it. When it finally stopped, there were at least 25 cars that I could see, with every one of their windows busted out. After we all made sure everyone was okay, the men started calling their insurance companies. I heard, more than once "What do you mean hail isn't covered?" I, of course, only have liability since I paid $3,000.00 cash for my LUXURY, electric push button everything, heated leather seats, gorgeous, root beer colored Magic Car. The car that made me feel rich, even tho I now live on 629.00 a month. My now piece of shit car.
I could see a cop car trolling the freeway, checking on everybody, so I was really quite frantic. I'm not USED to having pot paraphernalia to consider, and I was now a card-carrying druggie. Earlier, I had taken out an onyx pipe, marveling at its structure, and it was somewhere in the front seat. The cop and his dog stopped at every single car on the freeway, and I was the last in line. He didn't stop to talk to me, probably cause the semi-truck drivers waved him off, cause I was telling them "Get that dog (police dog) out of here, my dogs will go crazy, and they're laying in broken glass". Brilliant, that. Whew.
ReikiMan happened to call to check on my progress back to Idaho, and I couldn't even speak. Plus, I didn't know how the hell to pronounce "Socorro". For some reason, that seemed vitally important, and I couldn't tell him where I was, so he probably thought the stuttering was normal MS shit. The phone reception was shitty, so it kept going out. He could call me, but I couldn't call out. When I finally got the story out, he asked if he should come get me. I told him I didn't see any reason why he should, as there really wasn't anything he could do, so he told me okay, but to keep him informed as to my plans.
All of us 'Hailed People' were still just kinda standing around stunned, and gradually it was hitting all of us (no pun intended) that we were lucky to be alive. It was amazing that there wasn't an accident. We were all staring at how I lucked out, not driving into the raging water culvert, as it was so close to my car, and how amazing it was that during the onslaught, we literally couldn't see 10 feet in front of ourselves. I guess there were some accidents in town, but none on the freeway. The two semi's in front of me were saying that they were the first trucks hit, without notice from fellow CB'ers ahead of them, and everyone said that they hadn't heard any radio warnings at all. It just hit completely out of the blue. Some thought it was a tornado, but as we learned later in the news, it wasn't. Like me, everyone thought "what a lovely sunny day, interesting looking cloud". Even the locals, who are used to interesting clouds, didn't suspect such a storm.
The semi-truck pulled me out of the mud, the blood, and we all drank the beer. I limped the car into Socorro, and discovered the entire town had no electricity. No one could go into the stores or gas stations. Finally found a little tiny parts/thrift shop store, owned by Ma and Pa Kettle, who were about 102 years old. They still did business on receipt pads, so weren't dependent on electric cash registers. I had to buy windshield wipers, plastic, and duck tape. The Kettle's charged me and arm and a leg for it all. I guess I can be grateful they didn't charge me a user fee for using their scissors. The hail broke my wipers into pieces. Didn't just snap them off, but into PIECES. There are HOLES in my car!!!!
The paint is chipped. At least the damn dents seem fairly symmetrical. You know how much I hate it when things don't look matchy and even.
While I was trying to tape plastic over the sunroof, and back window, ReikiMan called to say he was on his way, he didn't want me to be out there alone. He said we could at least get me back to Ruidoso, saving me the cost of hotels. Because of the wind, heat, hail, and MS, it took me 2 hours to get the plastic taped on. I was staggering around in a drunken sort of way, while Ma and Pa Kettle watched, along with their 60 something son, who was kind enough to put the wipers back on, altho I had to read the instructions for him, cause he couldn't read.
The town drunk came by, and he thought I was manna from Heaven, that the storm brought him his soul mate. He kept asking me about my cell phone plan, and saying how much better his plan was than mine. Seeing how mine was worth shit at the moment, I agreed with him, so suddenly he called his service provider and tried to get me signed up with them too. There I was, with plastic flying all over the damn place, obviously needing help, the rain drizzling down, me sweating like a sumo wrestler and the town drunk was sitting on my hood, trying to get me signed up with his cell phone provider. I swear to God I expected Alan Funt's cameras at any moment.
ReikiMan called again, saying he was almost to Socorro. I drove into a Burger King, forgetting there was no electricity, and the girls met my drunken stagger at the door, telling me they had no service. "Not even a coke?" I said weakly. The perfect, darling girl took one look at me, and told another, "Get her a coke". It was the BEST coke I've ever had. I shared it with the dogs, who don't normally like coke, but the day seemed like a day for drinking.
I dumped at least 40 cups of shattered glass out of their crate, but least they were safe. And subdued.
The car lots in town were hit. Roofs and trees were down. Several people were bruised, one person in the hospital.
It took 4 hours to get back to Ruidoso, normally a 2 hour drive, but we could only go about 30 mph so the plastic wouldn't rip off. We were surrounded by an amazing lightening storm for most of the drive. Quite beautiful. Several times, I wanted to stop and gaze upon Mother Nature's wonders, but then I remembered that I was mad at nature. Fuck nature. So we listened to the Bush/Kerry presidential debate instead.
Luckily, it was dark, so I couldn't see any clouds. I have a new policy. "NO Driving Under Clouds".
So, to recap, I had no back window, side window, sunroof window, and the front windshield was so damaged, I couldn't see out of it. With my weird MS vision problems, along with the shattered windshield, it made me nauseous to drive my car, so ReikiMan drove it, while I drove his jeep.
It took another week to gather the money to pay for new windows. An email went out to friends and family begging for money. Unbeknowst to me, my sister had asked my father for money to0, but he didn't send any, because I had to be lying, - "No one has as much bad luck as she does". He and I haven't spoken in 8, 10, 12? years, so I never considered him a funding source anyways, but I didn't need to know about the added insult, and he certainly doesn't stand out in my life as a paradigm of honesty.
May I end this by saying how fucking glad I am to be alive and I LOVE my friends and family and it's important to TELL people that!!! And not to drive under odd looking or interesting clouds!
And then there was this.
After the storm out of Socorro, New Mexico, October 5, 2004.
That is all.
.
I must leave now. I mistakenly started a foot rub on someone, and he’s insisting on the other foot being done now. 
Jacob Poems
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