I think I'd be a good racecar driver. Just ask the old hispanic woman I almost killed.

In an older post I mentioned that I used to work for Super Shuttle. While I absolutely hated that job, it did provide me with a few good stories. Here's my favorite:

I had just dropped off my last passenger of the night who wouldn't shut up about me doing 80 on a 55 mph freeway. I gave her the usual "I'm sorry that you're such a wuss. That's probably why your kid wouldn't stop crying." speech and headed back to the airport. This was before I got three speeding tickets in one month and finally decided to slow down.

So I'm on the I-17 freeway going south and I'm in the far left lane. You know, the lane designated for people who like to drive as if they're being chased by a T-Rex. (I like dinosaurs. My favorite is the Velociraptor.) It's late in the evening on a Saturday night so the freeway is pretty open.

All of a sudden the SUV in front of me swerved hard to miss another SUV and flipped upside-down, turning over and over on it's side before it crashed into the freeway median and came to a stop. The other SUV spun around and an old Hispanic woman flew through the back windshield and flopped onto the freeway right in front of my van. The SUV continued to spin until it slammed into the median and all I could do was hit my brakes and hope I didn't run this poor woman over.

When I got out to see if I could help I'm pretty sure I looked something like this:

Maybe my biceps were a little bigger at the time
but you get the idea.

I ran around to the front of my van hoping for the best and what I saw was scary and relieving at the same time. The woman was lying on the pavement alive, and her head was maybe a foot away from my front tire. I checked her out and she was okay. She was bleeding and in shock but she seemed in tact. Her daughter got out of the car and ran over to us flipping out. I told her she was gonna be okay and ran over to the other SUV. It was upside-down so I started kicking the back window because the other doors wouldn't open.

It was at this point that I finally looked around and saw that I was the only person doing anything. There were people all around me sitting in their cars just watching. I yelled at this guy to come help me and he did. We opened the back door of the SUV and pulled four screaming girls out. They were hysterical, but okay. One had snot running down her nose and into her mouth, though. Gross. I thought about saying something, but decided against it. Seriously though, I don't care how many times your car rolled over. Wipe your nose.

By this time the police were there so I figured my work was done. I tried to get back in my van but these cops wouldn't stop trying to give me the Medal of Honor so I said, "Isn't that a military medal?" and they were all, "We have extra." Then this lady came up and was like, "You're a hero! Please bless my child. He's sick." and I was all like, "Is it contagious?" (he looked pretty bad) But before she could answer, everyone had gotten out of their cars and were giving me a standing ovation. Next thing I knew I was being hoisted up on everyone's shoulders and people were throwing confetti.

At this point you'd think I'd be crying or asking those cops for money instead of a medal, but all I could think about was the fact that I didn't run that old Hispanic lady over. It felt good to not kill someone. Some might say I was lucky, or that God intervened. But if that's true then why didn't God inspire me to just take a different freeway so I could get home in time for LOST. That police paperwork takes for-EVER!

Have you ever crapped your pants in front of six people in a Super Shuttle van? ...yeah, me neither.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Lindsey's ridiculously photogenic fiance Chris. She's become a little obsessed with blogging lately so I figured it was time for me to see what this is all about. And what better way to break the ice than by telling an "I crapped my pants" story.

Let's be honest for a second. We've all, at some point in our lives thought to ourselves, "If I try to fart right now, there's a ninety percent chance that I'm going to poop a little. But you know what, I know my colon better than it knows itself and I'm calling it's bluff." This is commonly referred to as "gamble gas".

Anyone with a colon has at some point, gambled and lost. Whether it's a mini-shart after a 2 a.m. Filiberto's run or a total colon blowout extravaganza after five-too-many churros at Disneyland, we've all been there. In public. With our pants/shorts/sweats/capri's/socks (I'm just assuming that if you were wearing a dress the poo would slide down your leg and into your sock) full of poop.

But I digress.

Before I moved to California I worked for a company called Super Shuttle. They prided themselves on having creepier drivers per-capita than any other airport shuttle service. See below:

I'm pretty sure I saw one of these guys chewing on
a human elbow in the holding lot.

It's like he's saying, "I can drive you home! I know where
you live! ...no seriously, I've been inside your house."

Anyway, I was one of the few un-creepy drivers at the time, (although after you read this post you may disagree) and I worked for Super Shuttle right up until I moved to California.

It was an okay job. My van had over 300k miles on it and we had to pay for most repairs out of our pockets even though we were only responsible for a few thousand of said miles. Most of my co-workers would steal every passenger they could get their hands on when they weren't busy telling dirty jokes or just mumbling incoherently over the cb radio. And in the barren wasteland of Arizona it was nice to know that your a/c would blow cold as long as you were doing 60mph or more. Like I said, it was okay.

Anyway, one stupidly hot summer day in Phoenix I was driving around the city picking up passengers to take to the airport. My van could hold seven people including the driver and I was on my way to the sixth, so this was shaping up to be a pretty great run. The last guy lived in an apartment so I left my van running in the parking lot while I went to get him. He answered the door and said he needed a few more minutes. I said, "Okay. I'll just wait for you in the van. We're parked outside."

So far so good, right? Well on my way back I was feeling pretty good about the money I was about to make so when my colon was like, "Hey, wanna make a bet?" I was all smiles and confidence. Little did I know that I was about to lose the biggest hand I'd ever been dealt. I gave one little push and suddenly this happened:

I chose Niagara Falls for two reasons:
1. It closely resembles the consistency of my poo on that particular day.
2. The amount of water. Seriously.

The people in that picture symbolize the people sitting in my van, wondering why their driver suddenly stopped in his tracks and shuddered like he'd just seen a ghost.

I had to think fast. I managed to waddle back up to the guy's apartment all the while thinking, "You know, if I could live this day over again I probably wouldn't wear shorts." He answered the door and I asked if I could use his bathroom. He obliged and I walked through his living room, being careful not to "spill" of course.

I locked the bathroom door behind me and cleaned myself up as best I could, considering they were out of toilet paper. I almost used one of their towels but decided to keep that last shred of dignity my colon had left me.

To be honest, I couldn't smell anything as I walked back out to the van. And I wasn't about to try. I have my limits. I just assumed that underwear previously filled with poo = smelly shuttle driver. But on the way back to the airport nobody said anything. Maybe the smell of the van and it's five thousand previous drivers overpowered my own. Maybe they could smell it, but were too embarrassed to say anything. Personally, I'd like to think of it as divine intervention.

By the way, i told Lindsey this story when we first met and she instantly fell in love with me. Romantic, huh?