Our house sits near the road,
giving us a VERY small front yard. When
we moved here, there was a short wall, maybe three feet tall, that bordered the
end of our driveway and curved around directly in front of the house. The front porch was obviously not original;
we had seen pictures of the house with a different porch, and with no porch at
all. When we asked about these things,
we learned that, on more than one occasion, an errant driver had driven off the
road and either onto the property, or into the house itself.
Now, people who don’t normally
travel on our road would be surprised to find out that it is the Philadelphia
equivalent of the German Autobahn, especially on the little straight stretch in
front of our house. Seriously…people
S.P.E.E.D. So it wasn’t hard for us to
imagine another car mistaking our front yard for a drive-in window. We knew we would eventually have to make some
improvements, but the need arose sooner than we expected.
One evening during our first year
here, Don was working outside and Tessa and I were watching TV in the master
bedroom. Suddenly, Don comes crashing
through the back door yelling, “Call 911!
There’s been a wreck!” After I pooped
myself (not really; that’s just funny!),
I grabbed my cell phone and ran outside.
Sure enough…there it was. A car. On our wall.
Not AGAINST our wall or crashed INTO our wall…ON our wall. Behind it was a trail of destruction: a
mailbox crushed beyond recognition; the post in the ditch across the street;
several birch trees with branches ripped off and more than one completely mowed
down; glass and car parts strewn over a wide path. And the wall…THE WALL, you guys!! This vehicle had demolished it and was
sitting half on what was left, and half on the other side of where it had once
been, in our front yard.
I called 911 while I processed
all of this. I found the driver and
determined that she was not injured. I’m
not saying she was “all right”, but that’s a whooooooole different story! After I hung up the phone, I realized that
there was another occupant in the vehicle.
Actually, make that TWO occupants: a young boy…and a rooster.
That’s right, my friends…there
was a rooster in the front seat! No, he
wasn’t buckled up; that would just be silly (said with heavy sarcasm). The boy was sitting in the seat, holding the
rooster as tight as he could. And
through it all…running off the road, crashing into the wall, the abrupt stop…he
had never lost grip of that rooster.
Before you get all worried about
the rooster, he was fine. More than
that, he was the CAUSE of the wreck!
Apparently the mother was deathly afraid of roosters. Which makes perfect sense to have one in the
front seat, but whatever. The rooster,
not loving the ride, had angrily flapped his wings, as roosters will do,
scaring the mother. She lost control of
the vehicle and the rest is history.
Now...I grew up in the country
(as country as Karns could be) and Don was from Etowah. So we’re not exactly city folks. But Don had lived and worked for 11 years in
Washington, D.C., surrounded by very important and famous people. I lived there for three years myself
(surrounded by not famous and not important people. Wait…important to me, just not famous. Or whatever I need to say to make my DC
friends still love me). Many of our
friends were what we Tennesseans would consider Yankees. So…imagine trying to tell these people that a
wreck had occurred on our property and it was caused by a rooster. To say we heard a lot of dirty farmer jokes
is an understatement. Because really,
how many people can claim such an inspiring story??
All’s well that ends well,
however; nobody was badly hurt, their insurance paid for the wall to be
replaced, and now we have a partially-built prison retainer wall up
closer to the road to stop any more cars from landing in our laps. We’re taking bets on when that might be…
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