AIRBAG BLUES

I worked late on Wednesday.

About 6, I went to my car, sat in it, and turned the ignition to crank, with
little more on my mind than to get my ass to the house.

KA-BOOOOM!!

In 1/10000th of a second Everything goes Black/Green/Gray.

That's it. The TALIBAN terrorists have found me. I am a dead man. At least
I am getting blown to smithereens instead of having my head cut off.

Another 1/10000th of a second I am feeling and groping for the door handle
on my car to escape the impending inferno that I am sure is coming.
Everything is tingling and I have no clue that ten escaped prisoners from
the Atlanta Federal Pen have just pummeled my face with a ball bat. The
smoke has already filled the car and I struggle to find fresh air.

In yet another 1/10000th of a second, I hit the UNLOCK button on my door,
and find my way out into the fresh air. At this time I realize that my air
bag has deployed, has probably removed my face from my head, and the smoke
was the airbag powder. I make a mental note to purchase a Christmas tree
car deodorizer thingy at the next available opportunity.

Something is annoying me greatly, besides the fact I have no face, and
that there is something that feels like barb wire twisted around my ears and
eyes. The annoyance is my horn, which has gone off immediately when the
airbag did its dance, and I never realized just how damn loud it is. But
first, the barb wire around my ears and eyes is what used to be my
eyeglasses, now twisted and mangled, with the lenses being blown away in
the blast. Realizing I cannot live another moment with this annoying horn
waking the dead, I pull the hood latch, and see if I can go find the wires that
connect to the horn---who am I kidding?-the last time a human could unplug
a horn wire was in 1970.

Gathering some of my senses back, and now my face begins to hurt. I now
realize that I still have a face, but I can't see very well, and I figure
my eyeglass lenses must be in orbit somewhere over Sub-Saharan Africa about
now.
Another employee pulls up in a truck and sees me running around like a man
who just had his airbag deploy on him, and offers his assistance. I tell
him of my dilemma, having to scream over the DAMN HORN. He attempts to mess
around at the steering wheel where the once full airbag is now slowly
deflating, and when he squeezes the bag the horn intermittently goes on
and off, in bag pipe fashion. I am thinking, I just washed the car, and
cleaned it from stem to stern, and now this. I am always amazed at how much better
OLD GOLD rides when she is clean.

As the horn finally subsides, the fellow employee who shall remain
nameless---because he never mentioned it and I never asked-has done all he
can do for me, so I thank him and he drives off. By using the deductive
form of what little reasoning I have left, I decide that instead of my eyeglass
lenses skidding across the surface of the moon, they may very well be nearer
my car to thee. I begin by looking around on the asphalt where I egressed
my machine. My left eye is the only one working at present, and only works in
a non myopic state---which means I can only see up close.

So I lean way over like the middle age old man that I am, grunting and groaning , looking with
one good eye and both hands until lo and behold, I come across one of my
lenses. I go back to my car and find the other lense in the backseat floorboard.

Jiminy Christmas!

I tried to imagine what my head must have been doing while this was going on. But to heck with wondering and worrying about it now, I needed to get home.

I went back inside, washed off my face and what little bit of blood had been
over my right eye, blew the airbag stuff out of my nose, untwisted my
eyeglass frames, popped the scratched all to hell lenses back in, grabbed
the car keys and said to myself, LETS TRY THIS AGAIN.

The car cranked again, and no explosion. But I glance over to the passenger
side airbag and wonder. I will keep it in the corner of my blurried eye for
the remainder of the 80 mile trek to the house. I got headed down the road,
trying as best I can to look cool while sitting their with a lapful of smelly airbag.

I also think that I am much better off for having the airbag bust my chops while in the parking lot sitting still than had I been getting it down the road the way I drive. No telling what would or could have happened. I also thought about a real car crash and the way the airbags are
SUPPOSED to work. I have seen all those crash test dummy ads on TV, but
after now having seeing one up close, I guess the only advantage to having
it go off in a wreck is at least you are concentrating on the wreck-- It ain't much fun if you're just minding your own business.
But its over and done with, and all appears well. As the fear and shock go away, I get my
testosterone levels back to normal and come to the realization that perhaps,
just maybe, a LESSER MAN would have soiled his underdrawers.

Life is good.

But if you see me leaving work one afternoon, and i am cranking my car while
my seat is in the lay down position, don't laugh. Air bags aint for sissies.