I was almost to the brush aisle in the paint department at Menards when I heard a loud groan and a crash, then a panicked woman saying “Sir! Sir, are you okay?” So, I beat a hasty retreat from the paint department over to hardware to see if I could help. There was the guy on the floor, jerking and convulsing, and a Menards employee along with another guy who arrived about the same time I did. Another guy and a woman showed up just after.
The guy having the seizure was in rough shape. He was flailing about as he foamed at the mouth amid the scattered screws and blood on the floor. I got 911 on the phone and got the ball rolling on an emergency medical response (this is kind of shocking, but I think I was the only one of the five of us who arrived first to have a phone on their person -I thought pretty much everybody carried one these days -but apparently that is not the case with 80% of this particular cross section of Menards shoppers). About a minute into it, the foaming at the mouth stopped and most of the twitching as well. The guy was a little combative as he started coming out of his seizure, which is normal… but the other woman who ran over after he collapsed apparently thought he was just being rude, so she smeared her fingers through the blood puddle on the floor and shoved her hand up to his face, telling him with kind of a scolding tone that he was already bleeding and needed to stop fighting the two guys who were trying to hold him still, at one point telling him to “be a man!”. I can understand the desire to want to keep the guy from smacking the back of his head against the floor over and over, but that bloody hand thing freaked him out and then he started really struggling with the two guys.
I was rather astounded that the lady dipped her bare hand into a stranger’s blood, and kind of taken aback that her tone wasn’t at all calming, either -in fact, pretty damn rude, telling a guy who is seizing to “be a man“. After all, it’s not like the poor guy set out that day to collapse and spasm in the hardware aisle of Menards. I got in there next to him and told him we all just wanted to help, but that we were scared that if he tried to get up, he might collapse and hit his head again, so we really just wanted him to try to stay as still as he could be so we could just wait with him until the paramedics arrived to check him out. He chilled out quite a bit then. The EMS crew arrived, and I went on about my shopping.
Seizures can be kind of scary. When I was in high school, a neighbor girl who was in my grade had epileptic seizures quite often at school. At the beginning of each semester, in every class I had with her, there was always a little tutorial on what to expect if she started seizing in the classroom, and what to do if it happened. I probably have that high school experience to thank for why the Menards guy didn’t really frazzle me, but a couple of the employees who had gathered around were all wide eyed and asked me if I was okay as I continued my trek to the paint department once the EMS crew took over, which I thought was strange. Apparently, my switching of gears from “help the seizure guy” mode to “get my edging brush mission” with no lingering in the “stand around gawking at the emergency responders and the patient” mode in between seemed bizarre to them -well, whatever. Their concern would have been better spent on the lady who smeared her hand in the blood, or better yet, the patient that the paramedics were loading on the gurney.
Right about that time, I got a phone call. It was Abra Auto Body in Hopkins calling to let me know that my Mustang would be ready to go home in about thirty minutes. It turned out that Menards didn’t have my Zibra brushes, so I figured I had enough time to stop in at Lowes before my car would be done. They didn’t have Zibra edging brushes, either. I was out of time in my eagerness to get my Mustang back, so I quickly washed the Fiat, filled its tank, and zipped off to Hopkins.
This is what I saw waiting for me in the parking lot.
Keep in mind that the last time I saw my Mustang, it looked more like this:
I went inside, paid my deductible, and got my paperwork. Then, the shop guy went out with me to inspect their work. We went over an itemized list of what had been done, and I examined my car to make sure that the seams were identically spaced side to side, and that everything was perfect again. There was a bit of scuffing on the rim still, but the Abra guy hopped right on it and shined it up for me. In all, they replaced the fender, the front bumper, the driver’s side headlamp and marker light, the wheel well insert, a splash guard under the chin, some radiator brackets, and the lower chin grill. Then, they painted the replaced panels as well as the driver’s side door (to blend it in), and the results were fantastic. My pony is back in fighting form, and I couldn’t be happier with the job that Abra did.
Abra did clean out my car, but only in the front seats. They did not vacuum the Aesop fur from my rear headliner, which made me happy, too. Everything turned out great. I transferred my things from the Fiat to the Mustang and handed over the Fiat keys to the Abra guy (they’re only a couple blocks from Enterprise, so just as they handled arranging for the Fiat to be brought there for me, they were handling the return of it as well). Off I went in my Mustang, and it felt amazing to be back behind the wheel of my car, and I even found my edging brushes at a Home Depot store on the way home!
Don’t get me wrong. The Fiat was a nice little vehicle to pal around with for a week, but it’s definitely not a Mustang, and certainly not MY Mustang. I had my ups and downs with the Fiat. Even though the novelty of it wore off rather quickly for me, overall, my impression of the brand improved from the time I spent with that little car. My Mustang, though… Man, did I miss my Mustang! I was so happy to have it back that when I drove it to work, I bypassed an open and free parking space along the street in favor of paying for a safe and secure spot in the Haaf ramp, parked right in front of the security camera, where it will be as safe as can be from anything that might come along.
So, that was the big news for today… But the little Fiat that I at first nicknamed Marcello, but then changed to Danny (because the car seemed a lot more like an automotive embodiment of Danny DeVito than Marcello Mastroianni after I spent a little time with it) did take me on a little adventure on Sunday. It was perhaps the best possible vehicle to take for that outing, because with it, I was able to snug into an itty bitty parking space in a crowded ramp that I would have otherwise been circling about in looking for a suitable spot to park. Just for a bit of fun, I’ll drop a little clue about just where the Fiat and I went on Sunday.
Wanna guess where I saw this gorgeous beast?
No comments:
Post a Comment