Death to Bessy

                Everyone remembers their first holiday spent away from home.  Like I previously mentioned, money was tight and I knew that being one of the new girls at work, I wasn’t exactly going to be at the top of the list for requesting time off.  Things were gradually beginning to progress at the restaurant, but I definitely wasn’t going to push my luck.   To keep from being totally depressed about my situation, I decided to replace feeling sorry for myself with optimism.  I was finally going to meet one of Will’s older sisters, who is quite infamous in the family for being witty and quick.  Also, Will’s other sister was going to be in town with her husband and son.   I figured it would be a good opportunity for me to make an impression.

                Will gave me a few pointers the week before Thanksgiving as to how I should probably present myself to his family.  After all, these were women who had grown up in New Orleans, and party was just simply in their blood.  He informed me that, more than likely, I wasn’t going to keep up.  He then proceeded to reminisce upon the times when he and his sisters would go out.  Without going into too much detail about his tales, I will simply describe my emotion; SHOCK AND AWE.  I decided promptly, no, I couldn’t “hang”. 

                Nevertheless, the day arrived when the family came to town.  In a matter of hours the house shifted from quiet to buzzing, and I was so very intrigued. There is definitely a hierarchy of needs in most New Orleans based families.  First order of business on the agenda, of course, was cocktails and beer. His sisters were truly fascinating, and hearing them all sit around talk about “the good ole’ days” was equivocal to reading a novel.   We all decided at the end of that first night to go to “Cooter Brown’s”, one of my favorite bars in NOLA.  I, of course, was tired after about an hour and a half after arriving……freaking light weight.

                It was the night before Thanksgiving and we were all merry, jolly, and full of good cheer.  We arrived home around 1 a.m., and my head, of course, hit the pillow like a sack of bricks.  I had thoughts of turkey and stuffing, and pumpkin chiffon pie (a Thanksgiving staple in Will’s family).   That is, until all hell broke loose on the street outside.

                It was approximately 3 a.m., and Will and I were assigned to the “water bed room”, the room that EVERYONE, and his mama (ha), had to walk through to get to the bathroom.  Red (codename for older sister right above Will in the sibling line up) came into the room and proclaimed in the dead of night “ummm…Megan, I think someone just hit your car”. 

                “No, not Bessy”, my beloved silver CR-V, “it can’t be,” I groggily thought to myself.  No, not Bessy, the car that back in August had carried Will, GG, and I to Atlanta to seek refuge with Red and her family during hurricane Gustav.  In short, to briefly describe that little adventure, we decided to evacuate because most New Orleanians, still being shell shocked after hurricane Katrina, decided to get out of dodge at the first word of “hurricane”. While we were there, Bessy’s rear control arm exploded as Will and I were coming down a hill.  That cost a pretty little penny to repair, a pretty penny that I did not possess.  Needless to say Mom and Dad were not very pleased with that bail-out.  Also, I do not like Atlanta, that is all.

                Anyway, I somehow flew out of bed and threw on some decent clothes.  Did I mention it was REDICULOUSLY cold outside?  So I got out, in my pj’s, at 3 a.m., the night before Thanksgiving, in the freezing cold,  and found that my car had been made into an accordion on the side of the road by a drunk, dumb, bitch.  A drunk, dumb, idiot who, according to the insurance adjuster, who came the next day, must have been going at least 70 in a 25 to cause the damage to my car that she did.  Initially, all I saw were flashing lights.  The cops and all of their amigos, the fire department and EMS, were all there right outside waiting for me.  The idiot driver was still in her car on the other side of the street  through my neighbor’s fence, WHICH, she crashed into only after pulverizing his car.

                The rest was kind of a blur.  Of course I followed protocol, insurance, driver’s license, registration, etc.  The only thing to do was pick my jaw up off of the ground, go back inside, and go to bed.  As I laid my head back down on the pillow, the first thought came bursting through like a needle piercing flesh;

 “I don’t have a car anymore”.