I think I've acquired some weird kind of cursed magic. I was sitting on the bus just fifteen minutes ago, and all of a sudden I was thinking about my experience at the Ontario Provincial Court a few weeks ago as the main witness for a trial regarding a bad car accident. Then my mind wandered and for some reason my eyes fixated intensely on one of the cars next to the bus, noting all the little details about the baby sticker on the window and the colour of the car, etc. Ten seconds later a van came out of nowhere and slammed into the driver's car door. I think I jumped up, said 'shit' and closed my eyes for a second. The bus stopped and the driver called 911, and the driver of the van ran out to stare at the other car. No one was moving and people were yelling and freaking out all around the car. It was extremely stressful, and I'm almost ashamed to say that my first reaction was to ask the driver to let me out so I could leave the scene. I just felt sick and I didn't want to be involved in the situation. Besides, the scene was surrounded by other bystanders and one of them seemed to have taken charge of the situation while another started directing traffic. I guess I should have stayed to leave a statement or something like that, but I just couldn't do it again. Seeing that last accident months ago, calling 911, talking to the cops, writing a statement and going to court was simply too stressful. Especially considering my fear of dialing 911.
Which brings me to another peculiar event that happened yesterday afternoon. I was at Manon's apartment and picked up the phone to check for phone messages at home. I think I had dialed two numbers when a sudden loud, authoritative and tense voice said: '911 Emergency, What is your emergency?' I was so startled and confused that my first reaction was to slam the phone down. Half a second later it came to me that, regardless of the mysterious reason, 911 was on the other line and I had just hung up on the operator - something which, everyone knows, is a recipe for sending the cops directly to your place as soon as possible. So I grabbed the receiver again and instead of hearing the dial tone, I heard the same woman barking her intro with even more urgency: '911 EMERGENCY, WHAT IS YOUR EMERGENCY?' I felt like a bumbling fool and just stammered on to explain that I was at my sister's apartment and had no idea how 911 ended up on the other end of the line. She seemed suspicious and asked me three times if everything was allright and if I needed help. I had to confirm the phone number, address and my name, which was followed by a last 'are you SURE you're allright, Ma'am?' Man, that totally freaked me out. See, I have been having this reacurring dream for years and years regarding 911. In these nightmares where I am in complete dire straights, I reach for the phone and dial 911, but the outcome is usually endless ringing (as the danger approaches à la horror flick), or a nonchalant operator seems unfazed by my screaming pleas for help, or I'm put on hold to some really bad elevator music. Oh yes, and there's the one when I call 911 and the operator ends up being the 'bad guy' I've been trying to elude. Phew! Anyway, so when I called 911 for the first time when I saw the car accident months ago, it was a huge event for me. I half-expected my nightmares to come true. So, taking that all into account, perhaps you can imagine how bizarre and very stressful it was for me to have somehow pressed the digits to my most feared telephone number!
Well, I'm off to Montréal tomorrow on the 7:30 a.m. train with Manon for a leisurely day of walking, shopping and eating. Looking forward to seeing Alex, too!
For those of you wondering, there is a slight change of plans regarding my cell phone. I am now officially, angrily boycotting Fido and have canceled my account. You cannot imagine the bozos I dealt with, the nearly two hours I spent on hold in the past few weeks, and the inconsistency of their files and information. That's it, three strikes and you're out (more like seven, in their case). No more Nice Camille. So I'll be looking into a new company and new plan in the next few weeks, which by default gives certain people (you know who you are) more time to complain about my cell phone problems and my lack of availability! Yay for us all.
P.S. My dear Lisa 'Rent-a-Cop' Redekop has joined the wonderful world of blogging! I am happy to have regular access to her thoughts and photos to come. If I get her ok I may include her blog address here soon.
Bonne fin de semaine à tous...
1 commentaire:
Ya Cams....weird man because I dreamt last night that I was trying to call 911 because someone was in my house. I kept dialingit and it would just be a dead line. The bugglar was starting to come upstairs and I was hiding and kept on trying to dial again and again and always a deadline. The thing that was maing me panic more was the fact that my phone beeps when you dial a number so he could hear where I was hiding. The last thing I remember is that the closet door opened. Then I woke up and layed in bed for about an hour thinking of the best place to hide in my house should someone break in while I was there alone. Weird stuff man.
Adele
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