Speaking of the Ol' Tercel

That last post reminded me of Gung's good ol' 1987 Beige Toyota Tercel that Mom had to buy for $2,000 bucks. It was a good little car, clean, no major damage (until I drove it). Anyway, I remember driving Janine and Mui to McDonald's one day. The goal of the trip was to get something for the booger to eat and a chance for Janine and I to hang out.

So there we were, driving along Sunset Boulevard when this idiot in this van crept out in to the intersection. Being that he was stopped at the intersection and since I had the right of way, I just kept on going. But so did he. Slowly and stupidly, he crept his van out in to the middle of the street while I was just cruising on down the street, naively thinking he would stop like he was supposed to. But he didn't! By the time I realized he wasn't going to stop, I was about 10 feet from him going 35 miles/hour. "OhVince! Watch out!" Janine called out, as I swerved the car deftly to the right to avoid the on-coming van that STILL did not slow down. As I passed the van, I could hear the passenger in the van screaming; that's how close I came to the other vehicle. Talk about doing Titan's Turn!

Just after passing the idiot in the van, we continued on down the street in stunned silence. All of us, except for Mui, who said out loud in her monotone voice, "Ngo-dei jong che?" (we got in-to a car accident?) completely oblivious to the gravity of the situation we had just avoided. There was no concern, no worry, no excitement. It was as if she wanted to know what time it was, or what the weather was like. I, on the other hand, almost crapped in my pants, as I'm sure Janine almost did, too.

And I thought I had nerves of steel.