Car Crash & Carbs

Last week, Jason and I had the most quintessential of LA experiences. We got rear ended in North Hollywood! Jason handled the defensive driving like a pro, preventing a chain reaction that would’ve resulted in a much worse accident. But it was scary and painful and discombobulating and annoying. I had big plans for last week, but I ended up just lying under a heating pad, gathering evidence on Kate Middleton’s disappearance. I’m now ready to step in and find her if asked.

The woman who hit us was nice, and I was glad for that, because sometimes (maybe a lot of times) someone can do something to you and be completely in the wrong and still be mad at you for it. 

I hate driving. On the road of life, I am a passenger. Some people have to drive, because they feel out of control when they’re not behind the wheel. For me, it’s the opposite. When I am behind the wheel of a car, I am too aware that I am careening through the universe in a two ton machine, and absolutely terrible things could happen at any moment.

When I turned 16–after showing zero interest in the act of driving–my parents offered a very generous gift. They could buy me a cheap, used car OR they could buy me a computer. I chose the computer. I spent my days publishing *NSync fanfiction on Angelfire websites, and I spent my nights happily riding shotgun beside my friends, many of whom shouldn’t have been driving either.

Right before college, I finally took the driver’s test. I remember getting graded in the family van. I remember getting my license. And I remember totaling the van one year later. It was late at night. My mom was in the passenger seat. I was in the fast lane on the interstate, attempting to pass a slow-moving car. Billy Joel’s Movin’ Out was playing on the radio. The car sped up. I overcorrected to avoid hitting him, jerking the steering wheel. We spun in circles and flipped. The next thing I remember is Mom and I hanging upside down, suspended by our seatbelts, and Movin’ Out was still playing. I distinctly remember wondering if I had died. 

I asked Mom if she was okay, and miraculously, she was. Even more miraculously, there was a van following us full of paramedics in training who had just gotten out of a class. They pulled over, put up flares, called for help, busted out the back windows and helped guide us out of the car. I’d been driving home from college, and the trunk was full of dirty laundry I was bringing home to wash for free. While the paramedics made sure everyone was safe, I ran around grabbing peplum tops and panties from the grass. It was one thing to lose a van. It’s quite another to lose an entire Lane Bryant wardrobe.

The accident left me with bruises, real and emotional. I pulled glass out of my thighs for weeks, and I didn’t drive for another year, when an internship in Los Angeles required it. I only ever took side streets. Sometimes I show Jason the careful, gentle routes I mapped to get from the west side to the valley–a series of two lane neighborhoods with snail’s pace speed limits where I could putter quietly along with little risk of sparking road rage.

Getting into an accident–even a much smaller one–drags all of that up. It drags up when I finally bought my own car–a used, red Toyota Echo that was so little and low to the ground, it probably could’ve been propelled by Flintstone feet. I was car proud, carefully parking it away from the other cars in our apartment complex’s parking lot. 

It only took two weeks until our neighbor Teague*, a perpetually high doofus, hit it with his yellow Trans Am. I woke up one morning to his car parked beside mine and giant scratches scraped across my door in bright yellow paint. This may have been my first adult lesson in how you can only have something nice for two weeks. When you buy it, enjoy how it shines. Take photos of its pristine exterior. In fourteen days, your stoned neighbor will drive into it and deny any wrongdoing. If you’re lucky, like I was, his mother’s insurance will eventually pay for it, because she knows her child. 

All of this to say, it’s been a week. (And some months… and also 4 years?) My friend Lauren texted to say that she hoped I was having a post-adrenaline-rush carb meal, and the next day, I made one! The Stay at Home Chef lasagna recipe is the best lasagna recipe. From its full pound of mozzarella cheese to its two cans of tomato paste, this is the lasagna you want when you get rear-ended, when someone dies, when the entertainment industry contracts, or, if you’re feeling frisky, all 3. 

We ate this lasagna for days. A hot piece here. A cold chunk there. This week, I offer you the gift of crispy corners. Please make it and send me pictures. 

*Teague’s name was not changed to protect the guilty.