#95 Car Wreck

I've been thinking a lot about ice skating on oil. Not just any oil, but a very high quality deep grassy green olive oil. It will cover an entire skating rink and will smell fantastic. Of course, it will be incredibly slippery. Given the fact that I cannot ice skate, this activity will be especially innervating and dangerous. I will be able to stand up and slide elegantly with foot over foot steps which will allow me to experience something I have never done before. When I have skated in the past it was not fun. It was humiliating and exhausting. I repeatedly fell on my ass and it hurt. Everyone else dancing effortlessly around me suspended in midair with placid smiling faces.

So, I will join them and it will be fantastic. I will not fall on my ass and will master olive oil skating.

Today my elderly parents got into a car wreck. The sun blocked both their eyes and they ran a stop sign. When the EMT came to extract the elderly woman from the vehicle they hit he told them this:
"It's okay. Everyone has accidents."
This was, of course, utter bullshit. Not everyone has accidents and minimizing a car crash, even one when nobody gets killed, isn't a good idea. Especially when delivered by a well meaning EMT to an old couple: a couple who should no longer be driving.

My father never calls me Lizzy. When he minimized the crash over the phone he called me Lizzy twice. What the fuck. Sorry, that is mighty adorable but won't distract me from the fact at hand.

I never want you to drive a car again.

I don't know exactly how to tell you this, but someone has to do it. The car is wrecked and you will have to cab home or to your concert or dinner date or whatever it is. Boo hoo. Fucking boo hoo and excuse me while I go for a skate on my ultra premium olive oil ice skating rink so I can think about what I will say to you to break your hearts with the truth. The truth is, it's over. The car is in the shop and when it's fixed it goes back to the volkswagen dealership and you will get rid of the lease and open an uber account.

If I sound mad, it's because I am. I hate having to be the one to tell you the facts of late life and burst your Golden Years balloon. It disgusts me to have to pull the plug on one aspect of your independence so you don't risk killing yourself or anyone else, again.
Frankly, it sucks to be here.

So, even if I cannot ice-skate I will think about it a lot. I will be out there with my smile and close my eyes and ease into the wind with the music playing. I will be lost and you can watch me fly, because I've never done it ever before and it will be really great.

I'll call you tomorrow.