In Which Miss Jill Reflects Lovingly on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority

I hate to reinforce negative stereotypes about women, but I have the driving prowess of a fifteen-year-old brace-faced, permit holder. Consequently, I have been in seven car accidents. Although only two of those were technically my fault, I can’t help but think that a more skilled driver could have avoided the majority of them. Except for one.

I was home from college one summer and I went to the gas station to vacuum out my car. One minute I was leaning into the trunk and the next minute I was lying on the ground six feet away. When I came to my senses, I looked up and saw the back of a twelve passenger van planted firmly in the front of my car. At first I interpreted the colossal van as a sign that my assailants were fellow Mormons, until a morbidly obese woman in a bikini emerged from the wreckage. “@#$#@$,” she stated.

“@#$#@$,” responded a group of teenage Goths who approached the scene. “Do you need witnesses?” they asked me enthusiastically. “Uhhhhh…..,” I responded, taking charge of the situation. A voice that would be at home on a Bollywood soundstage yelled from the store, “The police are coming. Stay calm.” Botticelli’s muse gasped and ran back into her van and several minutes later she returned donning a fishnet cover-up. She must have figured that law enforcement personnel deserved a higher level of modesty than the population at large. “This isn’t my fault,” she lamented. “My kids were wrestling and they knocked the car into reverse.” The gathering crowd looked into the van and five or six bedraggled kids grinned out. It was obvious that they were the breed of kids who would wear a Garbage Pail Kids t-shirt to school on Picture Day. Think the Herdmans from the Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

To make a long story short, she gave me fake insurance information and my parents paid for the damage because we were all too lazy to hire a bounty hunter. And that is why I smile contentedly when the stench of homelessness wafts into my nostrils on the subway.