Those French Canadian Stop Signs

2004-01-31

I managed to stumble my way to the car and as we pulled out of the parking lot it suddenly began to feel like the car was taking off from the ground and flying through air. I don�t remember much what happened in the next 15 minutes. My head was thrown back as I listened to a friend and suddenly the car began to shake, swerving around, throwing me against the window then thrusting me forward to the front seat. Our driver managed to get control of the car and after few moments, we stopped completely. In my drunken state everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. I couldn�t decide what happened but none of it seemed serious enough to panic over. I threw the door open and crawled out of the metal box. We were in a ditch, and just 10 feet behind was the French Canadian stop sign that was now completely broken in half due to the car. Minor aches aside everyone was ok. The shock of it all still didn�t register in my mind. Instead it seemed as if I was still in the club. I made my way away from the car, onto the highway road and as eyewitness accounts go (because I don�t truly remember it) I preceded to dance. The dance must have involved a lot of arm movement because apparently I managed to flag down a car to help us remove our wreckage from the ditch. In the �20 degree weather, I watched 10 people struggle to push the car out onto the road, all the while still prancing around. After an hour or so we were ready to continue the journey home. With everyone so shaken up about the events, it was dead quiet inside. The car was managing so far, my high was fading away and the sickness was introducing itself. My eyes couldn�t focus, and it seemed as if my neck couldn�t support my head. Just outside of town I made a panicked request to pull over whereas I proceeded to puke up all the good stuff that I managed to put into my system.

We reached the dorms at 5 am but instead of heading of to my room to sleep off this bad dream, I kept going up the stairs to the 3rd floor. I knocked loudly on room 308 and without waiting for a reply I busted in. Bigfoot, asleep in his bed was hard to wake especially when it was suddenly so hard to find my voice. The shock of the events was starting to set in. I walked out onto the hallway to wait for Bigfoot and right there I collapsed in tears. Someone came up to comfort me, a boy whose face I don�t remember. When Bigfoot came out, he stepped away. I felt Bigfoot embrace me but when asked what�s going on, I could find the words. He walked me down to my room where I collapsed onto my bed while shaking violently. All I could think of was how much I wanted my mother to be beside me. In this state of shock, I laid for some time with Bigfoot beside me holding me close. I finally sent him back to bed at 6am before passing out myself in the room that refused to stop spinning.

Today, my body ached and my head felt as if it might explode. Everyone that was there has now dissected the story and made it real because if they wouldn�t, I would be convinced that it was only a dream. Having never to been in a car accident, the shock of it was more than I expected and the delayed affects of it should be blamed on alcohol. Yet I came to the conclusion that if I wouldn�t be so drunk, all of this would have been unbearable.

And the cause of all of this is the damned French Canadian stop sign.