Life is a Helper

I have never been a good narrator, and I doubt I will ever be. When the professor announced that this week’s writing style focus would be narratives, I thought to myself, “great, Rick the lousy storyteller is back in town again, everyone.” Just as I was struggling with filtering for anything interesting in my life, a series of unbelievable events happened to me during this short week that would prove to be good narrative material. Yes, no doubt life is a helper.

On Monday as I was biking home from school, feeling excited for the creativity dripping off my writing class, I discovered my car parked in front of the house was wrecked. The left front fender was severely damaged and the front bumper came half off. My mind immediately went blank, then a second later, a voice in the back of my head said, “oh boy, what a great way to start summer school.” Lucky me, a note was left on the windshield by a police officer, saying “Your car was hit by a Yolo County bus. You need to call xxxxxxxx.”

On Tuesday morning, I called the number provided by the police officer. Apparently it was the number of the county sheriff’s office. The person on the phone informed me that I should instead contact the Yolo County Human Resources Department to start the insurance claim process. Ok, I guessed HR was the insurance expert in the government, so I went on and gave them a call without thinking too much. The person answering the phone from the county HR was in shock and asked who directed me to call their number. And once again, I was referred to contact the county department of transportation.

On Wednesday, as the endless phone call transfers continued, I discovered my bike was not working properly. I took it to the Bike Barn and borrowed some tools to fix the supposedly minor problem. The problem wasn’t minor after all. Some mysterious sealing ring to protect the bearing was broken on the wheel and it would lead to a fifty dollar replacement of the entire wheel. I couldn’t afford it, and so I dragged my bike all the way from school to home.

On Thursday, I decided that I was sick of the phone calls and I wanted information of the car accident to file a claim with my own insurance company. I went to the city police station and spoke with the person at the front desk. After she made some phone calls and worked on the computer, she told me nothing regarding the accident was on file. She suggested that I email the police officer that handled the accident for more information.

On Friday, I am still waiting for the police officer to write me back and tell me what exactly happened to my car. And as I am writing this post, my laptop is making some very funny noise that makes me believe I should be expecting a computer system breakdown very soon.

Yup, life is a helper. Just as I thought I had nothing to narrate, who would have thought my week would be filled with stories?

Note: None of events is dramatization. Ok, maybe I was paranoid about the computer.