My First Post of 2011

Well, sorry if you've been waiting but I have not had many experiences that I wished to write about. Though I have written about Political things, I really don't like to, and am considering erasing all of my Political posts. Anyway, I recently got into a car accident and thought I'd share something.

I grew up near Downtown LA. It was a great lower class neighborhood that had lots of hard working people, as well as poor unemployed people.

It was a safe area, though there were some street gangs. Things did get a little rough in the early 80's to 90's, but no one in my family was ever hurt or felt scared. But we all developed "Street Smarts" or so, I thought we all did.

All of my brothers and sisters moved out of the area and now live in better neighborhoods. I now work in the area. We all visit our Mother often.

As I was coming over one night, Another driver hit my truck and caused damage to my rear axle, making my car undrivable. I had it towed to my Mother's house and left it there.

The only one I told about my accident was my brother because I had to borrow his car. But it is pretty obvious that I was involved in a car accident, as the damage to my rear axle is obvious.

I was sure that my sister could figure this out, as she came over to the house the next day, and would wonder why my truck was in the yard when I was supposed to be at work.

A few days later, while I was working, an Insurance adjuster came over to assess the damage. I let him in, then had to leave and go on a call. While he was doing his job looking over my truck, my sister came over again to visit our Mother.

When she saw a stranger in our yard looking at my truck, she panicked. "WHAT IS A STRANGE MAN DOING IN THERE!" she was probably thinking. She then called me, left a voicemail AND a text telling me what was happening in the yard.

Obviously, though we all grew-up here and have some “Street Smarts,” my sister has lost some "Street cred." When witnessing someone doing something unusual, one could come to the conclusion that someone dressed like a gang member, with a gun, knife, bat, stick, and/or screwdriver, etc, and sneaking around looking for things COULD be a criminal, and the situation could be dangerous.

However, a short man, thin build, wearing glasses, a pullover sweater, dress pants and dress shoes, taking pictures and measurements of my truck, and writing things down on a pad, doesn't really fall into the category of a threat.

At my sister's expense, I'm still laughing over this.