Earlier this week in Dickinson, I was driving an older full-size pick-up truck that I own that has a six inch suspension lift and a large after-market front bumper.  I turned off of Villard Street into an older gas station downtown, and I slowed down quite a bit because I had to drive between two parked pick-up trucks in order to get to the next available gas pump.

From in front of the parked pick-up truck to my left, out walked a blond women only a few feet in front of me.  She didn’t look up, or look in my direction, as if I weren’t even there.  This was a shock to me.  This was about the closest that I had ever come in my life to accidentally hitting or running a person over while driving.

I was astonished, and I was upset about this.  I had no intention of getting into a car accident or running over a person on this day, but I almost couldn’t help it the way that this woman walked out in front of me.  Not only did I almost not stop in time, she was so close that I almost hit her before I even knew to put my foot on the brake pedal.

I looked at her as she walked in front of my truck and into the convenience store, as if she didn’t even realize that I was there, and I wondered to myself how she had managed to stay alive so long, being so stupid and careless.  Was she stupid, was there something wrong with her, was she upset, was she suicidal?

As I was putting gas in my truck, this blond woman walked back out of the convenience store towards the gas pumps.  I thought about stopping her and telling her how close I had come to accidentally running her over, and that she needed to look more carefully before walking out in front of cars.  She was about 40 years old, thin, pale, and kind of nervous acting, like she might have been upset about something or had something going on, so I decided to not say anything to her.

She walked over to a new black Camaro at the gas pump.  Then I thought to myself, maybe she is one of those “accident injury people”, who deliberately try to get hurt or injured so that they can sue other people in order to get money.  I have met some people who get new cars that way.

When this blond woman got into her new black Camaro, started it, and drove away, I saw that her vehicle license plate said, “9 LIVS”, and I thought to myself, what the fuck?