the story of Tara's worst nightmare come true

I am terrified of cars. 

I am scared of driving them. I am scared of being driven in them by reckless teenagers who swerve and speed. I am scared of crossing the street against traffic. Even at Ward Circle, where the cars are supposed to yield to pedestrians, I like to wait to step into the street until the coast is completely clear. Cars are bigger than me and they are scary.

My parents are to blame for the root of this fear. When I was growing up, they liked to remind me of the statistical data on teenage driving and car accidents. (For example -- did you know that for every additional passenger in the car, the chance of an accident increases a bajillion percent? Did you WANT to know that???) I think they just wanted me to be cautious, but I ended up with an irrational phobia that causes me to sprint across the street even when I have the right of way.

I am the last person that should have ever gotten hit by a car.

But that's what happened on Monday night as I was walking home from Tenleytown with an armload of groceries. As I was crossing the street with all of my usual caution (I was IN THE CROSSWALK, with 5 WHOLE SECONDS left before the light was going to turn), I looked to my left to see a car making a turn. And continuing to make a turn. Right into me.

I'm going to give the driver the benefit of the doubt -- it was 8 p.m. and raining, so I guess they had a hard time seeing me. They should have heard me, though, because I started screaming at the top of my lungs as my greatest fear started to come true: the car ran into my side and knocked me over onto the street.

Fortunately, it wasn't going fast enough to hurt me (that is, if you don't count my emotional scarring). I didn't have any bumps or bruises or broken bones. I stood up without any trouble and promptly hyperventilated. 

The people in the car stopped, pulled over, and tried to convince me sit down in the back seat to catch my breath. I had somewhat of an internal conflict -- "Tara, you're not supposed to get in a car with strangers!!!!" competed with "Tara, you just got hit by a car and it's raining and these people should probably give you a ride home before you decide to sue them." 

Ultimately, I figured that these people weren't planning on kidnapping me. Running me over with their car was bad enough, and they probably didn't want to traumatize me any further. I was right. After apologizing, offering to call 911, and asking if I needed to go to the hospital about 48436799 times, they dropped me off on campus. One of the guys turned to me and said, "Well, at least you got a ride home out of this!" before turning white as a sheet and stammering, "That was tasteless. I'm sorry. That was an incredibly tasteless joke. That was terrible. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry." (I think the threat of a lawsuit was scaring them all shitless. It was an interesting position of power for me.)

All in all, I am physically unscathed, but my fear of cars has increased exponentially. I apologize if you ever have to walk anywhere with me in the near future -- you may get impatient when I wait 10 minutes for all of the cars to disappear into the distance before crossing the street, and you may think it's weird when I jump 15 feet in the air whenever I see a car making a left-hand turn in front of me. I know my phobia is strange. But now at least it's not totally unfounded.

(And if those strangers in the car ever read this -- it's okay, guys. I was never going to sue you. But I will accept donations towards my inevitable therapy sessions. You can make checks or money orders payable to Tara, the girl who will forever be terrified of large vehicular objects.)

<3tara