Let's Not and Say We Did

Last night was a night that I can now add to a group of life experiences which I like to refer to as my Death Defying Days (DDD's for short).  Somehow I find myself from time to time in situations which are dangerous and downright ridiculous to be in, and end up under the category of a DDD.  I guess it's a good thing because if they weren't death defying, well then, there would be no Anne to blog about them.  Some of these DDD's are serious, like the time I was in a rolling car accident and broke my neck and it was truly lucky that no one sustained a worse injury than mine.  Others are less grave in nature, like the time I took an icicle to the head because I was knocking down icicles from my gutter with rake.  That event simply ended in stitches, but it could have been worse had the icicle been any larger and sharper and fallen in just the right (or wrong) way.  Thus, it is a memory labeled as a DDD in my mind.  Last night's rendezvous with death, fortunately, was more like the latter experience.

My friend, let's call her Sharen, and I had plans to go get something called an "Acai bowl" yesterday.  She told me that one of her other friends was coming, so naturally, when she pulled up in my driveway to pick me up, I was expecting there to only be the three of us in the car.  Silly Anne.  That's not how they do things in Hawaii.  Apparently, there exists this unwritten rule that whenever you drive somewhere you have to pack as many people as humanly possible into the car.  I opened the door to find 3 fully grown college students in the back seat, Sharen in the driver's seat, and another college student in the passenger's seat.  "Ummmm......" I stood there unsure of what to do.  "Hop in!" Sharen said.  "Okayyy...." I said without the least bit of confidence that hopping in was actually an option.  Luckily the person closest to me was someone I had at least met a few times and shared a class with, so I wasn't going to be sitting on a complete stranger.  With some source of divine intervention I was able to clamber into that tiny, jam-packed car and shut the door (at least until I heard the first click).  Once I was in I assumed we'd be making our way to the Acai Bowl place.  Wrong again.  You'd think I'd learn to expect the exact opposite of what is logical by now.  We pulled into another driveway.  There we picked up yet another passenger to join us on our escapade.  She squeezed her way into the front seat.  I wouldn't have been surprised if we had stopped to pick up more people, but to my relief we headed down the road to eat Acai bowls, four grown people in the back seat of a compact car, 3 in the front, limbs flailing out the windows.  As we made our way to the shop I feared that one of the not-quite-shut doors would fly open and couldn't help myself from imagining my body (seeing as I was the one mashed against the door) hurtling out of the car and onto the highway. 

We arrived at the Acai bowl (still not sure what that is) place only to learn that it was closed.  Great.  We had traveled in this clown car for nothing.  Someone suggested McDonalds and so we satisfied our need for sweets at the home of the golden arches.  Don't ask me how 7, once again grown, (it'd be different if some of us were small children) individuals, now filled to the brim with fast food, were able to fit back into that dilapidated old vehicle.  I almost offered to just walk home because it would mean a free-from-doubt-of-survival way home, but we managed to get everyone into the car before I could.  I was never more happy to be dropped off at home.  Such a relief.  Anyone who knows me even remotely can testify that I'm no thrill/adventure/or danger seeker.  Ever since my DDD of a car accident where I actually almost died, I'm all about car safety.  Whenever I get in a car putting my seatbelt on is my first course of action.  So, you can only imagine how sincerely terrified I was during last night's episode of Death Defying Days of Anne's Life. 

Call me a nerd, but I will always be the one to echo Ms. Frizzle's sound advice of "Seatbelt's everyone!"