Friday, April 10, 2009

"Fried Fridays: A Nervous Wreck"

In my carefree days as a kid, I enjoyed Saturday morning cartoons. The older Bugs Bunny skits still make me laugh to this day. Chip and Dale made my palms sweat with their near-death escapes. "I say, I say" that Foghorn Leghorn never gave up trying to trick the wise hound dog or outsmart the little chickenhawk in his stead. Ah, that list could go one.

And who can forget poor old Wile E. Coyote who tried every trick in the book to get the Roadrunner, only to meet his demise upon every effort...often "close, but no cigar".

And so we begin this week's winning "Fried Fridays" story...

DATELINE: BERLIN, GERMANY

Meet an unnamed 69 year-old Berliner fraulein who was at the Baltic resort island of Usedom. Couldn't find anything else about her, but I am now curious what her spiritual or psychic outlook on Life is.

For starters, I'm going to guess she is not an accomplished driver; or, if she were, that accomplishment has gone bye-bye, or at the very least been seriously compromised.

She had just gone to a local supermarket for a little shopping, but had the misfortune of running into 3 cars....count 'em, 3...as she was trying to pull out of the 'car park', as they call it.

Oops.

Probably out of panic and the shock of hitting the 3 cars, instead of hitting the brake she stepped hard on the accelerator.

Oops.

Her hurtling now-derby car shot across the lawn and promptly crashed into a nearby house.

Oops.

Luckily and thankfully, she was not seriously hurt. The police arrived on the scene and as you would expect called an ambulance to take the woman to the hospital for observation and treatment.

And so they carefully placed her on a gurney, into the ambulance and headed to the hospital. I would imagine that while shaken, the woman was glad she was in the 'okay' shape she was, considering her sequential mishaps.

Until a truck crashed into the ambulance before they arrived.

Ouch.

In one hour, this poor woman went from Aisle 12 to Room 12...but through it all sustained only minor injuries, amazingly.

"I'll take 'Hiring a Cab' for $600, Alex...."

--------------------------------------------------------

Happy Easter weekend to everybody! Have a SAFE one!!!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bob, does this severe threat look like its going to be a huge outbreak? And if we had any tornadoes, would they be long lived and strong or bried and weak?

Bob Child said...

Time of day is not favorable for an outbreak of many individual cells in our immediate area, though I think any T's that form would have limited tracks and in the EF0 to EF2 range. However, the late-night threat seems to be more squall-line type which could have some weak embedded tornadoes (VERY hard to pick out) but high potential for wind damage from downbursts and straight-line winds over a larger area. All I know is I fully expect for Mercy the Wonderpup to be in my face late tonight to let me know it's getting stormy!

Anonymous said...

So, just to clarify, tornado is a pretty small threat? and if it happened it would be pretty short lived and weak?

Bob Child said...

Playing semantics, eh, 'Nony'? I would NOT say "pretty small" at all, per T threat, except for this afternoon. Late tonight is THE period of most concern. And I say that for the Carolinas at large, not just the metro area. I do think the threat is greater in SC and in eastern NC east of Highway 1, and long tracks would clearly be an exception in this case. For anyone that loses a barn, lots of trees, a roof, be it from a T or straight-line winds, that is not 'weak' nor 'insignificant'. It's nature. It's a spring storm system with an attitude. I don't sense it is a record-breaker at all, though.

Bill Cassidy said...

In keeping with your story and the opening comments about Saturday morning cartoons, do you suppose it was Herr Magoo driving the truck that hit the ambulance? It would be fitting!