I Hate You, Jupiter

I'll admit it:  I'm a hater.  I try to avoid hating, realizing that hatred is pointless & doesn't benefit the hater, that "hating is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die," etc.  Yes, yes - I know.  Hatred is a waste of energy.  And yet, I still hate.  Specifically, I hate (to name a few) clowns, country music, and Jupiter.  Not this Jupiter:

That Jupiter actually looks quite lovely, like a really pretty rock.  No, I'm talking about this Jupiter:

I HATE YOU, JUPITER, FLORIDA!  Here, I'll write it in sand to make sure you get the message:

Jupiter, Florida is my nemesis, and soon you will understand why.

Several years ago, my sister and I had to get ourselves from Massachusetts to the Florida Keys for Christmas.  We decided to do this road trip style.  Woo hoo - road trip!  Should be fun, right?

The first day went fine.  The beginning of the southward east coast drive is very rewarding.  You fly through states so fast you feel like some sort of road trip hero.  "Wow!  We've gone through six states!  We're amazing!"  High on our super traveling powers, we discussed the option of driving through the night but instead made a late-night decision to stay at a motel and finish the journey the next day.

Our second travel day offered splendid driving conditions:  sunny & cool with hardly any traffic.  We were flying right along, listening to alternative 90s bands and talking about...I don't remember.  Let's assume we were talking about sex.  That's always been a popular topic with us.  We had just filled our tank with $.99/gallon gas, which even way back then was an incredible price.  I was in that perfectly complacent state that so often leads to stupid, neglectful behavior like flipping my parents' car off an entrance ramp and into oncoming traffic.  But I'm getting ahead of myself...

So I innocently drove into Jupiter, Florida, not yet realizing what a wretched den of sinister intentions that city would prove to be.  I had essentially been driving in a straight line for hundreds of miles and was preparing to take the only exit required in my entire several-hour-long driving stint.  I slowly exited, then began accelerating to merge onto the next highway. 

[Let me take this opportunity to mention that I was driving my parents' newly leased, brand new Ford Explorer (with Firestone tires, I might add, although this happened a few years before it became quite fashionable to roll Ford Explorers with Firestone tires).  That car had amazing pickup.  The car I was used to driving went from 0 to 60 in about 5 minutes, with gentle coaxing, a magic song, and a generous application of fairy dust.  Suffice it to say I was not used to a quick, efficient pickup.  I was used to flooring it to make the car go faster than a slow roll.]

Suddenly, lots of shocking and bad things happened all at once.  The car started going much faster than I had intended it to go.  The exit ramp took an unexpected 90 degree right turn.  I hit a curb, the front tire exploded, the car started rolling over, and my sister went like this:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

[Runs out of air]

[Inhales]

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Seriously - she screamed out two full breaths' worth of screaming.  It was really something.  Even while the car was flipping over twice, 18-wheelers were zooming past and everything was smashing all around me, I clearly remember thinking, "Wow.  Two full breaths of screaming.  That's really something."

After about twenty minutes, or maybe an hour or two, the car finally stopped rolling.  We were left with the passenger's side of the car lying flat on the ground and me, still in my seat belt, hovering up in the air above my sister and raining blood all over her, since it turns out my arm went out the window and grated along the road during all of the flipping and smashing.  As soon as she had finished her second breath's worth of screaming, my sister said, "Get the phone!"

[So here's a funny thing:  years before, my parents had bought a cell phone to use in case of an emergency.  This was a long time ago, so the cell phone weighed about 5 pounds and was the size of a brick.  Whenever any family member went for a car ride that was going to be longer than a few hours, that person would be mandated to take the brick phone along just in case something happened.  The phone had been passed from family member to family member for years without one single incident.  Now, let's return to that comment from my sister...]

"Get the phone!"  My sister and I both looked to the cigarette lighter where the phone was plugged in, and then followed its cord along the interior of the car and straight out of the busted-out driver's side window.  The "family emergency" phone, in its one and only time of need, had flown away.

"Whoa, this is dangerous!  I'm outta here!"

Thankfully, just as our gazes simultaneously reached the driver's side window, a police officer's face appeared there.  It turns out he had been driving behind me on the exit ramp and seen the whole incident.  He informed us that he had already called the paramedics, and we should just sit tight.  My sister, handing me her jacket to hold against my arm, instructed me not to look at my arm, which, of course, I immediately did.  It looked like this:

Ew.

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, my arm looked like cooked hamburger meat, and NOT in a good way (if such a thing is possible).  I quickly covered my arm with my sister's jacket and made a mental note to perhaps, in the future, listen when someone tells me not to look at a mangled body part.

The paramedics arrived quickly.  They looked into the car, saw my blood-soaked sister, and determined that she was horribly injured.  Despite the fact that she kept saying, "No, I'm fine.  It's my sister who's hurt," they simply told her she was in shock and spent several minutes extricating her from the car, and then several more minutes immobilizing her on one of those scary strap-down stretcher dealies.  Meanwhile, I continued hanging in the air, bleeding steadily into my sister's jacket. 

Eventually, the paramedics figured out that my sister was, in fact, not injured in the slightest.  They became confused about where on earth all that blood had come from.  They stood around for about ten minutes scratching their heads and exchanging theories while trying their hardest to tune out the annoying buzzing sound in the background, which sounded something like:  "Could you please help my sister?  She is really hurt."

After the whole ordeal, I sent all of the paramedics on the scene this gift of thanks

At approximately Christmastime the following year, the paramedics finally remembered there was another person in the car.  They cut me out of my seat belt and pulled me out into a FULL-ON ACCIDENT SCENE, including tons of cops, ambulances, and news crews.  As I observed this scene and the obliterated remains of my parents' car, this was the one and only thought in my head:  "My father.  Is going.  To kill me."  And then they strapped me down onto one of those immobilizing boards.

We took a 5-minute, $2500 trip to the hospital (I wish that part was an exaggeration, but it's not).  They unloaded my immobilized sister & me and wheeled us into the hospital.  Once we entered the hospital, the paramedic who was wheeling me said (I also wish I was making this part up), "Just what I've always wanted.  A couple of girls strapped down on boards."

By that point, I had just fucking had it.  I'd trashed my parents car, scared the shit out of my sister, injured myself to the point where my arm looked like dinner, been left hanging (literally) for way too long, and now I was being harassed by someone who was supposed to be helping me.  And so...I started yelling just like this: 

That's right, folks.  Right after McShitface Jupiter Paramedic made that comment, I started calling for help over and over.  His response was to push my stretcher - full-force - down the hospital hallway, turn around, and leave the building.  No shit.  That really happened.  Thankfully, a nurse caught me at the opposite end of the hallway before I went crashing into the wall.  She brought me into a room where I sat for several hours awaiting surgery.

There were a few upsides to this whole experience.  1 - My father (clearly) did not kill me.  2 - My sister and I have an interesting story to tell, & I have a snazzy scar.  3 - My surgeon was really, really cute.  Other than that, the whole thing totally fucking blew.

Since that accident, my family members, while traveling through Jupiter, have experienced debilitating transportation issues including flat tires and transmissions going out.  In conclusion, FUCK JUPITER.  I hate you.  If I could kill you, I would, but I can't, so I will simply continue hating you. 

As an aside, when I returned to college after the holiday break, I was talking to a group of kids in my dorm about the accident and told them I'd flipped my parents' car over twice.  One of my dorm mates responded with this:  "Why didn't you stop driving after the first time you flipped it over?"

Wow.  Just wow.