A 12 year old boy was hit by a pick up truck while sledding in Gambrills this afternoon. It happened at around 3:15PM at the 2100 block of Old Dairy Farm road.
According to AA Co, Police the child was sledding down a hill when he was hit by a pick-up truck.
The boy was transported to Johns Hopkins Pedriatics for treatment. His condition is unknown at this time.
This, don’t get me wrong, is tragic, certainly; but it’s also illustrative of why you shouldn’t skid down a hill with a street at the bottom on a day when vehicles might not be able to stop as soon as they would with dry pavement. Most ridiculous? The news segment on ABC-2 showing kids still sledding down the same hill. Jesus Christ, what kind of reality check do they — or, um, their parents — need? Idiots!
I wasn’t going to post today in protest of Valentine’s Day, but, hey, that’s be stupid, despite my total loathing of the day.
No sooner had I dressed myself after emerging from the shower then my cell phone rang with a message from Greg. In short, “Eff this shit, we’ll be closed tonight.” Good stuff, but Gary’s not such a pansy about the snow, and my phone shortly thereafter began ringing with him at the other end: “Eff you, we’re open. Get your ass in here.” Which, after digging out my car and clearing it off, I did, on the condition that I work inside. The main roads at 10:30am were slushy and a little troublesome for my Celica, and the backroads were horrible. And, look, I realize that I may, in fact, be a pansy, and while there’s a certain risk element to driving for a living, I don’t care to inflate that risk when I’ve got no need to do so. Long story short, yes, I worked inside, while Zap, that greedy guido, took deliveries.
I’m guessing we were the only pizza shop open, or at the least, the only one delivering. The phones wouldn’t stop ringing, and there were a lot of people who were cool with our delivery time of “at least an hour, probably closer to an hour and a half, or two hours, or something like that.” Thankfully, the business didn’t come in one big hit — that would’ve been disasterous. We got several decent business hits, which permitted us to somehow get all the delivery orders made, the few carryouts taken care of, and we only fucked up big on two orders: in one case, I forgot to pack a salad with the order and Zap had to make a second trip back out; in another, someone (not me, I swear) forgot to properly close a Greek salad, and it spilled out of the bag and now Zap’s car smells like feta. He wouldn’t say exactly how much money he made, but I’m guessing he made, in the non-specific and hopefully non-literal “an ass load.”
Anyway, working inside were myself, Gary, Gary’s 10 year old son (I think he must hate having the day off from school because it means he comes into the shop and has to work), and L. (who, by the way, stopped trying to learn English from Red Dragon because, as she put it, “ick!”). Gary tried to get Chris, the night pizza maker, to come in, but Chris pretended he couldn’t understand Gary (whatever, he speaks better English than he lets on) and wouldn’t. If he had, Gary could’ve taken the occasional delivery if he’d needed to (and he probably would’ve) and we probably would’ve been okay on the inside too. As it was, I think we would’ve been in trouble if he’d had to leave, so it’s best he didn’t.
Whatever, everything, in the end, worked out fine, although getting there was a lot of fun. I particularly enjoyed the people who would call up to find out if we were delivering and, after I explained we had a limited area (we were only trying to deliver to the industrial park), they would ask, without, mind you, informing me of their address, “do you deliver to me?” At which point my instinct would be to pause then inquire if they’d be so kind as to inform me as to their address so I could give them an answer. Also fun, the telemarketer who called at one pm. I think the customer waiting for service got a kick out of it, as I know Gary did, because, let me tell you, I let fly: “It’s fucking snowing, it’s fucking lunch, are you out of your fucking mind? Call back later!” As soon as I hung up, Gary shouted at me, “Next time, tell the fucker not to call back!” Whoops.
Also fun? Having Gary cussing at the woman I’m on the phone with. She’d called back and Gary knew from what I was saying that she was asking me the same things he’d been asked. So here I am trying to answer her questions while Gary, not ten feet away, is calling her “a stupid dumb retarded fucking cunt whore bitch in-need-of-a-fucking-clue” at a volume that, while not quite screaming, was certainly very loud. I wanted to tell him, “Please, Gary, don’t do that again” but business picked up and I didn’t have the chance as soon as I was shouting “fucking asswad” every time I hung up the phone.
We did have one moron who kept calling back every fifteen minutes to find out where his pizzas were. First of all, you were told on the phone delivery time would be at least an hour, so why are you calling at half an hour? Second of all, calling every fifteen minutes? I was pretty sure if I’d told him “fuck you, we’re not delivering to you!” and thrown the pizzas in the trash, Gary would’ve applauded. Third of all, dude, it’s fucking snowing. We’ve got one driver on the road, and no one else is delivering. By the way? The next time you call us? We’re fucking hanging up on you, taking the phone out of the wall, and strangling you with the cord. You suck, and we all hate you. Assmonkey.
Just when I thought the day was nearly over and I was about to be able to roll home, my phone rang. Greg again. “Yeah, so we’re actually going to be open.” Seriously, what the fuck? Don’t call me and tell me we’re closed when you’re going to change your mind later. And while the roads were certainly fine when I drove home at about 3pm, I didn’t want to be out on them when they froze when the sun goes down. So I drove home, and here I sit, working on a response to post to the Blackboard website of my myth class on the Iliad (Agamemnon is an asshole), and watching Star Trek III (Spock can’t really be dead, can he?). I, let me tell you, have the life you wish you were leading.
