[whoaskew]

I am sure I am missing a few but here goes


8 years old: At a pool at Minute Circle, saw the grown folks jumping in the deep end so I did too, too bad I couldn't swim. I was stuck in the middle, couldn't hit the bottom to push myself to the top with my legs, too low from the top to reach my arms up and wave for help. After a few minutes, I closed my eyes and gave up, thinking - this is it, at that point some guy pulled me out (I never found out who he was)


11 years old - I am visiting my (mentally unbalance) biological father, sitting in the living room with him while he is cleaning his gun, he points it at me and pulls the trigger five times then bursts out laughing hysterically - at that point I realized why my mother wouldn't let me go live with him (I'll share the story of how he ended up crazy at a different time)


13 years old - My cousin lived two blocks from me and I was at his house visiting. My mother told me that I had to be home at 7pm, so I would always leave at 6:58pm, thinking I should get there in 2 minutes. One day I did that and I was going down a driveway that led to a busy intersection (23rd Street near I-70) and didn't realize that the driveway was covered with rocks. I hit the brakes on my 10 speed and slid out into the middle of traffic. I looked to my left and saw that it was an old couple coming downhill straight at me. The drivers eyes were so big, I knew he was in shock, and I kept thinking "Ah, Shit he is gonna **** my leg up!!!" so I put my left leg on top of the bike. The car hit it and I slid across the other three lanes of traffic. Fortunately I had on jeans and a hoodie or I would have been skinned by the asphalt. The driver and a lot of neighbors and other concerned people ran over to me and surrounded me. I got up and they were trying to force me to be still. I kept yelling, Y'all need to get out the way, I only have like one minute left to get home!!! I tried to get on my bike, but then realized that the rear half of the bike was bent at a 90 degree angle from the impact so I couldn't ride it. By then, I heard sirens from the ambulance and the crowd around me had gotten bigger. I noticed that my mother was driving towards the intersection on her way home and I kept yelling to get her attention. I heard one of the neighbors tell her what happened and I saw my mother break down panicking, No, not my baby!, crying instantly, and I kept yelling Mom, I'm okay, but she couldn't hear me. Eventually she saw me and nearly tackled me, checking to see if I was okay. I told her I was okay, but of course she forced me to go to the hospital anyway. After that she told me that instead of having to be home at 7pm that I had to leave at 7pm, but be careful on my way home.


15 years old - riding with a 16 year old friend of mine down prospect near 29th street (passing by Jimmy D's for you locals) we are passing out free beer that my friend stole from his job at Crown Center to the women on the sidewalk - we hear gunshots and ducked down in the front seats and floored the gas, it felt like we drove for like five blocks and it was a miracle that we didn't run into anybody or anything since we weren't looking


17 years old - It was two weeks before I left for college and I had a POS car. It broke down on 40hwy and I had to go get help. I remembered that there was a mechanic shop next to McDonald's on Van Brunt so I started walking Westbound on 40 hwy to get there. Eventually, the sidewalk disappeared and I was walking on what was the top of a very steep hill. It had rained earlier, and I slipped. As I sas sliding down this monster of a hill, I saw an oncoming Metro Bus that I knew was going to hit me. Somehow when I reached the bottom of the hill, right before I would have went in front of the bus, I stopped sliding. I don't know why or what I hit if anything, but I stopped, and the bus passed me by. As luck would have it, when I got to Van Brunt the mechanic shop was closed down. In fact I beleive it is still vacant to this day.


18 years old - I drove home to KC for the weekend. On Sunday morning, it was time to go back so we loaded up and hit the highway. I was tired as hell from going out the night before, so I had the friend who rode with me drive. I was sleep in the passenger seat when I heard a loud BANG. I jumped up and looked in the side mirror and saw huge flames coming from beneath the car. I started yelling PULL OVER!!! PULL OVER!!! which he finally did. We ran as far as we could from the car and watched the flames engulf the car. A tow truck came and I called my girlfriend to come get us. We were only 30 minutes outside of KC so she had to drive an hour and a half to pick us up. She arrived and asked were we okay. I replied sure and talked to her for about 20 minutes. We were about to leave and she asked if she could see the car. We drove behind the Amoco where it was towed and she started panicking again- OH MY GOD!!! YOU WERE IN THAT???


19 years old - Same girlfriend from before decided to come to KC with me for the weekend. This big, buff football player from school asks if he can ride with us and I agree. It is late at night and we are riding on I-70 doing around 80 mph. My front driver's side tire blows out, which causes my rear driver's side tire to blow out too and the car starts swerving. I begin steering and countersteering, trying to keep the car straight until I can slow down, which is nearly impossible with only two tires functioning. Eventually, the car spins wildly out of control, spinning like a top on I-70 doing 80mph. I remain calm, staying focused to try to keep from crossing the median on one side of the highway and to keep from going off the big hill on the other side. I'm calm, my girlfriend wakes up and clenches my hand that is on the gear shift. The big football player in the back of my Cavalier wakes up screaming his ass off the whole time AAAAHHHH AAAAHHHH AAAAHHHH. We eventually go off the hill and I expect the car to begin flipping violently. We hit the smallest bush you can imagine and somehow it absorbed our impact and we stopped right there, with no damage to us or the car. Me and my girlfriend looked back at the big dude and laughed our asses off - not at the accident but at how he handled himself.


21 years old - I was riding with a friend who thought he could make a left turn before traffic hit us. He thought wrong and the car was t-boned by oncoming traffic on the passenger side - my side. The Hyundai he was driving was beat up and I had the worst headache imaginable, but I was alive.


25 years old - I rode with my dad en route to the auto parts store on Truman Road. It had been raining that day and some idiot was driving too fast. He crossed into our lane and hit us head on. My dad had sore ribs, and I had a massively broken arm. The EMTs used the jaws of life to get us out of our mangled Van and they put us on stretchers laying in the middle of the street. I got to the hospital and the nurse started moving my arm in all kinds of directions and I literally wanted to kill that Bitch. (The doctor later told me that she should have first gave me some painkiller before she started moving my arm). The doctor told me that since both major bones were broken, he couldn't just put me in a cast and send me home like normal. I needed immediate surgery - complete with plates, pins, screws, etc. I had surgery the next day and I had an allergic reaction to the anesthetic. My temperature shot up to 107 degrees and I was told that any hotter and I would have died instantly.


28 years old - I went to Club Kandy a few months ago, ignoring the voice in my head that has kept me away for years. I was inside the club and heard gunshots. I don't know if the shots were inside or out, but everyone in the bar started running towards the backdoor. I did too, and ended up running outside near the back alley. A bouncer came to close the door, told us there were no shots and that we could come back in through the front door. I was thinking bullshit, I know what gunshots sound like, so I tried calling the people I rode with who were still inside. I decided I would go back in and grab them and get the hell out of there. I walk around to the front door of the club, and the guys returned and unloaded there pistols right at the front door. Of course, I dove near a parked car to avoid being hit. That night Club Kandy became Club Deathtrap and is officially off limits for me.