This is part of a series of posts in which I recall a random experience which I will probably never do again. In this case, I certainly hope never to.

In 2003, I took a short weekend trip to Seattle, Washington, to hang out with some friends from high school who were going to college in the Seattle area (the University of Washington and Seattle University). The weekend was a fun time – I got to see/catch up with good friends, eat a lot of awesome food, and generally got to decompress after a long, difficult school year (and right before I was going to start my summer job).

Sunday arrived, and before it came time for me to head to the airport to fly back to Los Angeles, my friend Gavin (who had graciously hosted me all weekend) suggested that we get lunch at a burrito place about fifteen minutes away from his apartment.

“These burritos are awesome,” Gavin said. (I’m not exactly sure what kind of description accompanied this statement, but I’m fairly certain that the burritos were either described to be the size of “your head” or “a baby.” Either way, these were supposed to be pretty epic burritos.)

With nothing else to do until we went to the airport (and, of course, given that Gavin was my ride anyway), I accepted the challenge of the epic Seattle burrito and we headed out.

We were probably about halfway there (it’s difficult for me to remember, and also, it’s not as though I really understand the geography of the Seattle region, since I’ve only been there a couple of times), and as we drove, Gavin and I talked about the weekend, the future, and of course, the epic Seattle burritos we would soon be eating.

We entered an intersection, which was wholly unremarkable, except for the fact that out of the corner of my left eye, I noticed that a minivan appeared to have run the red light and was heading right for us.

Did I shout something? Probably. Honestly, I don’t remember anymore. We probably both shouted something. It was probably “SHIT!” or “FUCK!” or “LOOK OUT!” or something particularly useless like that.

I do recall very distinctly, both in the moment and in the time immediately following (Full Disclosure: I think I wrote a long email describing this particular aspect of the experience in greater detail about a week after it happened, but that was from my college email account and is probably lost to the dark recesses of the internet.) that the whole “your life flashing before your eyes” thing was bullshit, because there wasn’t enough time for any bits of my life to flash before my eyes.

Much of what actually happened I seem to have lost to either poor memory or defense mechanism, but I recall the screech of the brakes, the initial THUNK as the two cars collided (luckily both cars had slowed down enough that the crash didn’t end up nearly as violent as it could have been, and even luckier, the cars had met closer to the bumpers than one of us t-boning the other), the force of the impact shoving our upper bodies forward (but thankfully, not into the steering column or dashboard) before we slammed back into our seats.

I also remember the silence after, as Gavin and I sat there, stunned, and looked at each other.

“Are you okay?”

“I think so. You?”

“I think so.”

After moving the vehicles to the side of the road, we exchanged information with the people in the minivan while we waited for tow trucks and the police response – the occupants were two elderly women, they knew and acknowledged that they didn’t see the red light, and given that nobody was seriously injured, we were all relatively calm about the whole thing (as an added aside, both Gavin and the other driver had the same insurance company, which, I would imagine, probably made things run smoother, although I don’t actually know what happened with regard to the insurance claim). Once we knew we were okay, in fact, our biggest concern was “why didn’t the airbags deploy?” followed quickly by “we’d better stop sitting in the seats in case the airbags decide to deploy now.”

After an officer responded and took statements, the tow truck arrived and determined that the car should not be driven (the damage didn’t look that bad, but it was enough that it would have been tough to drive the car, anyway), and Gavin and I hitched a ride in the tow truck back to his apartment, slightly shaken but generally okay (well, mostly. Gavin had some minor whiplash, I think, and I bruised my knee where it punched a hole in the plastic lining of the center console. My knees are pretty lethal, it turns out).

After we got back to Gavin’s apartment, I called Mike (another friend of mine who we had hung out with that weekend), and he graciously gave me a ride to the airport. As we drove, Mike and I talked about that past weekend, the future, and of course, the car accident I had just been in.

I never did get that burrito.

 

 

A post-script to this story: because I managed to escape serious injury (and also because everyone in my family, myself included, is notoriously bad at communicating when it comes to potentially hazardous situations and/or medical conditions), I forgot to mention this event to my father. In fact, I’m not entirely sure I had even told him about the trip at the time. Shortly after I returned to Los Angeles I received a phone call from him, which went something like this.

“I hear you got into a car accident in Seattle.”

“Oh. Yeah, but it was fine, nobody got hurt.” (long pause) “How’d you hear about that?”

“I’ve been doing some consulting for a company in town. Your friend’s girlfriend’s brother works there.”

“Oh. Well, everyone was okay.”

“That’s good.”

That wasn’t the end of the conversation, but at that point we moved on to something else that I can’t remember anymore.

So I feel like I’m actually not terrible at time management – for the most part, I tend to get what I want done on time. (Especially the important things, like watching Parks & Recreation, or drinking heavily.)

Still, most days, even highly productive ones, I often think about the other things I could have accomplished, the tasks that make me say to myself “man, I wish I had done that today.”

So I made a list.

Obviously, the list would change from day to day, as a variety of tasks can be added or subtracted (for example, I don’t always work on the weekends, and when I do, it’s not as long, usually). But I wanted a baseline, a generic template to start from, just to see for myself what I need to do to accomplish everything I want to:

 

So let’s see how I did:

– Well, sleep, that’s obvious. 6 hours is about right for me these days, without a degradation in performance as a human. 18 hours left to schedule!

– 10 hours for work. That’s probably about appropriate for the amount of time I tend to spend in the office. Again, reasonable. Although now I’ve got 8 precious hours to spend.

– 4 hours for writing. Since that’s how I would like to eventually make money, then yes, it seems very important that I spend a reasonable amount of time writing every day. 4 hours is a good amount, in an ideal world. Although now I’ve only got 4 hours left.

– 2 hours to watch TV. This is actually way too low a number, given how many TV shows I watch. But it’s enough to get in the important shows, the ones that I have to watch the night they air, usually. 2 hours left!

– 1 hour for exercise. This is often something that ends up overlooked, but I really want to get better at it. 1 hour left…

– 1 hour to relax. Meaning I’m doing nothing in particular. This may seem like something that shouldn’t be on here, but it’s important to remember that studies have shown that downtime is important for the human brain when it comes to learning. So that should be in there.

Okay, well that’s my 24… oh wait.

– 1 hour to stare at wall and evaluate life. Self-reflection is super important. Non-negotiable.

– 2 hours of “social time” – seeing friends, grabbing a drink, talking on the phone, etc. I live alone, so finding outlets for human contact is something that needs to be scheduled. I obviously don’t go out every night, but this is also very important to staying sane. I’m not going to say it’s non-negotiable, but it can’t be zero.

– Oh, 2 hours for life tasks. Showering, cooking, eating, etc. To be perfectly honest, I’d probably forget some of this stuff if I didn’t have it listed.

– 1 hour to study Japanese. One of my great shames is that I don’t speak/comprehend Japanese very well (I’m probably at the level of a small child), which is especially troubling considering I have a number of relatives in Japan and my mother was raised there. I can and should, however, improve that.

 

So that puts me at 30 hours a day. I need 30 hours a day to accomplish everything I want.

Certainly, some of this can be doubled-up (watch tv and exercise, for example, or social time and showering), but it’s clear to me now that sacrifices are going to have to be made.

– Well, I probably can’t study japanese for an hour every day. Sorry, ancestors.

– Perhaps greater efficiency can be found in the life tasks section. All I have to do is figure out a way to cook and/or eat while doing other things.

– Social Time can be combined with Stare At Wall And Evaluate Life, although I’d imagine that will also lead to a reduction in friends willing to engage in Social Time. Actually, that’s not a bad idea.

 

Well, for a first draft, this isn’t bad. I think with some creativity, I can make this work.

 

Oh.

 

Except, of course, that I live in Los Angeles, which means I forgot the following:

TRANSIT VIA CAR – ???

Hmm.

 

How important is pursuing my dreams, right?

At my office, our lunch is paid for by the company, which is great, although it also means that we generally have to stay pretty close to the office/order from a nearby restaurant. Today we ordered from Panera Bread, which I guess people in St. Louis will tell you should actually be called St. Louis Bread Company. I ordered the Asian Sesame Chicken Salad. This is what scrolled through my brain as I had my lunch break.

 

1st Bite: Uh oh.

3rd Bite: The dressing tastes like weird diet dressing with some kind of fake sugar in it.

4th Bite: Is that a crouton? Why are there croutons in here?

8th Bite: I still haven’t seen or tasted any sesame. Just the saccarine from the dressing.

9th Bite: I THINK I JUST CUT THE ROOF OF MY MOUTH

10th Bite: OWW

11th Bite: OWW

12th-16th Bite: OWW (you get the idea)

17th Bite: Oh, I think it was just scratched. Feels better. Still doesn’t taste good though.

20th Bite: Seriously, another crouton. He must feel so alone, surrounded by mediocre wonton strips. Little does he know that he’s probably safe, since he isn’t even supposed to be here today.

21st Bite: …unless he wanted to be eaten. Then he’s outta luck today, because it looks like he soaked up a lot of that filthy dressing.

23rd Bite: I think I figured out the secret to this salad is, counter-intuitively, not using the dressing. Also, eating somewhere else.

24th Bite: It’s called “Panera Bread” dude. USE YOUR BRAIN NEXT TIME

25th Bite: Stop being such a whiny bitch. It was free, and there are people starving who would love to have this salad.

26th Bite: …but subjecting them to this is probably a class 2 misdemeanor in fourteen states.

28th Bite: Luckily the dressing only covered about 1/6th of the salad, otherwise we might have been in trouble.

30th Bite: May I be excused to go finish my homework, please?

 

PostScript: At around this time the salad was more or less reduced to soggy bits of lettuce that had stubbornly clung to the dressing, which I didn’t feel like eating. The piece of bread that came with the salad, however, was reasonable.