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Jan 24, 2003 In the end of the street, in the middle of the night, I see a woman walking. She seems to be drunk, moving her arms a lot and talking to the sky. I decide to slow down and already have my foot on the brake. But when she notices my car, she walks to the side of the street. Speeding up to the allowed speed, I look at the woman. She is good looking, so good looking I forget to pay attention to my speed. She stands up, runs to the middle of the street, I hit the brakes, but I am going too fast. I feel the shock through the car, I see her slide over the hood, the window, and hear how her shoes hit the roof. The car stopped, I am shocked. I look behind the car but see nothing. I get out, and walk to the back of the car. There she is. No, it is just her shoe. I check under the car, in the sides of the street, but nothing. I can not find her. I call the police and explain what happened and that I can not find the woman. The police arrive within 5 minutes. I am still looking for the woman. They call me and ask what happened. I explain it again, so they decide to help search too. An ambulance arrives as well, they help search too. But after 15 minutes the police decide to stop searching and want to talk with me again. A different tone of voice is used now. “Did you drink this evening, sir?”. “No, I did not, sir.” They keep asking me questions. I show the shoe as prove. Then they ask me to open the trunk of my car. Luckily it is empty. It would have been difficult to explain that the trunk opened during the accident and that she actually would have fallen into the trunk, after which it closed. Even though, it could have happened. We check the car; there is nothing wrong with it. There is no visible sign that my car actually hit somebody. The police are convinced that nothing happened and that I probably fell a sleep and dreamed the whole thing. $398.25 I have to pay for the unnecessary show-up of the ambulance. But I was sure I did not fall a sleep. It all happened for real, I know it did. I will keep the shoe. My life continues; I get married, but keep this accident to myself. People could think I was crazy. The shoe I keep hidden in the barn. I still have this image of the woman in my head. I still remember what she looked like. Blond, tall, thin, just like my wife. Then one day, the dog shows up in the room with a shoe and starts playing with it. He always does this so I stand up to take the shoe from him (he always destroys shoes if he gets the chance). Then to my surprise, I recognize the shoe. It is the shoe of the woman I hit. How the hell did he find that shoe??? Hmmm, there is something strange about this shoe. It is the same type of shoe, but it is the wrong one. This is the left shoe, the one I have is the right shoe. I go to the barn to make sure. I find out it is a matching pair. I ask my wife if she knows whose shoe it is. To my second surprise she says it is one of her old shoes. “Where’s the other one?” I ask. “Oh I lost it many years ago.” “Then why do you still have this one?” She explains she has some memories with this shoe. A little ashamed she tells that she used to be a car jumper. Meaning you walk in the street in front of a car and jump to let the car pass under you. One time she jumped too late and got hit and lost her right shoe. She did not get hurt much since it was just her foot that hit the bumper of the car, and then she bounced of the top. After it happened she ran away as fast as she could to her friends that were watching and they all went home quickly. Her foot was just slightly hurt. You can imagine my surprise. But I decide not to show the other shoe, not yet. I am angry, because I felt for years I hurt somebody really bad and I want revenge. I will make a joke on her, and then show the shoes. A few weeks pass and then I have my chance. We have an old car that needs to be replaced, so I figured I could use it to make the joke. I used to be a mechanic so I know how a car works, and I had prepared it. Putting the gear in drive now works as reverse. Also I prepared the gas pedal. Taking your foot of the pedal will not reduce the gas and the brake does not work anymore either. I come home from work and my wife says: “I will go to the bakery, I will be right back.” As usual, I open the garage door for her, and this time I was wearing her old shoes, to make the joke work better. I can imagine her surprise already. I step a side to let her pass. The moment she drives she says: “Oh, I had a mechanic fix the car this morning.” I jump in front of the car. What did she say????? ------------ Peter Faber is Dutch and has recently moved to Brazil. Visit Peter's website. Email Peter: getting_there@uol.com.br Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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