The last week has been trying at Chez Bees. You may have read a little something about it elsewhere on the Intarweb.

The heretofore undocumented capper was on Sunday afternoon, when my wife and I heard an unnatural sound -- like a thunderclap -- outside our window. I ran out onto the street and saw a Ford Escape tipped on its side in front of the house opposite ours. It had hit a tree in our neighbors' yard and flipped. I told my wife to call 911 and looked in the windshield to see how many people were in there. I saw a white-haired man on his side against the drivers-side window; I yelled at him that I was going to try to get him out, and then started pulling on the back hatch. It wouldn't turn, and nor would the back window open up. I couldn't reach the passenger door to unlock it, as the Escape is such an enormous vehicle that that door-handle was a good 7ft in the air. The drivers-side door was crushed against the ground, the driver-side window smashed, and glass strewn on the ground.

I yelled again that help was coming, and resumed trying to find a way to get him out -- focusing again on the back hatch, which seemed the safest option. By that point, he'd somehow managed to crawl to the dashboard and press the hatch-unlock button, as I then had no trouble popping the door open. I then said to him "It's open, come on", and he turned himself around and I helped him out. By the time he stood up and brushed himself off, a cop car had pulled into the street, quickly followed by another.

The driver, a 59 year old lawyer, been looking at the For Sale sign in front of the house next door, and wasn't paying attention -- resulting in his SUV smashing into a 300+-year old oak and immediately flipping onto its side. He was almost entirely unscathed -- a small cut on his hand was the only evidence he'd been in an accident. The tree was similarly unruffled. It wasn't long before the neighbors had ventured out to see what was going on, the cops had taken their notes and left, and the wrecker was hooking the chains up to remove the car. The neighbor whose tree it was said she'd been vacuuming and didn't hear a thing. We then went off on our previously-scheduled errand to pick up some medical records, shaking our heads and wondering what else could possibly be in store for this week.

One thing that made the week more bearable was Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's new podcast. The first 20 minutes of Episode 1 in particular left me paralytic with laughter. I highly recommend it -- they're posting a new half-hour MP3 each week. You will also be introduced to the genius that is Karl Pilkington. If the bit about the monkey being shot into space doesn't leave you doubled-over, then...then....feh, I give up.
| posted by Alex at 9:56 PM