Gesundheit!

I was heading south on Veterans Parkway (note, advertisers, that it's not Veteran's Parkway ... there's more than one veteran in this town) with my 7-year-old son in the backseat yesterday when we were sideswiped, hard, by a white pickup truck. OK, accidents happen. Probably a cell phone issue. Um, no.

The white pickup then hopped the curb and proceeded to travel through a stand of small pines across from Lowes about 80 yards until it came to a sudden halt against a bank upon which railroad tracks lie. Problem was, the truck went so far into the pines that you couldn't even see it from the road. I had no idea where it had gone.

A couple of fellows stopped on Veterans and followed the truck's path on foot. I, thinking it was a hit-and-run and that the driver was trying to find some way of getting out of there quickly, went to head them off at the pass at Whittlesey. The truck never emerged. So I, with my 7-year-old Dodger right behind me, headed into the pines until I found the driver acting as if it were a pretty typical situation there with her truck's front end against the railroad tracks and its tail end sticking up.

She was busted up in the face a little, but no big deal. However, she was loopy. My first thought was that she was incredibly high on drugs, and I'm still not convinced she wasn't. The engine was still running, but smoking, so I begged her to shut off the ignition, but she just kind of nonchalantly waved me off.

"I'll just back up," she said as if she'd merely had a little trouble parallel parking.

"Say what?!"

"I'll just back it up."

Whatever, I stepped away and called 911 while she proceeded to blow her engine up. Folks started to see smoke rising from the tracks behind the trees and began to wonder what the heck was going on.

When the fire truck, EMTs and cops got there, it wasn't too easy to explain where the truck was. It's not often you respond to a minor fender bender and the offending vehicle has disappeared. They looked at me a bit strange when I pointed to the large field to explain where the truck was. Finally, they saw the smoke.

As they hurried toward the truck, I warned them this person was high as a kite, in my humble opinion. They eventually got her to safety, and the police officer cited the accident as her fault. My truck's a little scratched up, but no big deal. But they didn't cite drugs or cell phones or anything else as the reason for the accident. They accepted the driver's explanation:

"I sneezed."

Allow me to use my Dr. Evil voice here: "Yeah, r-i-g-h-t."