Who is Ernie?


The new guy at work is wearing a red and blue striped shirt, shorts, and sneakers. With his messy black hair and that goofy smile on his facem he is a dead ringer for Ernie from Sesame Street. Seriously, if you saw a photo of Ernie and then saw this guy in real life you'd swear he is Ernie!

Jaws of Ernie

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Ernie is on a road trip with his wife. I hope he makes it home safely. The last time he went on a road trip he clipped the side of an old woman’s car on the freeway and flipped her upside-down a ditch. She is OK, and so is her daughter. But at the time, everything was a mess.

ERNIE: “I think a piece of dirt flew in my eye. I rubbed it for a second with my wrist and the next thing I know, BAM! I heard a loud noise and my car suddenly veered off the right side of the road. Dust was everywhere.”

JAKE: “Were you hurt?”
ERNIE: “No.”

JAKE: “What happened?”

ERNIE: “I made sure my wife was OK. She was, so I got out of the car. I saw a van on the side of the road. At first I thought I hit the van, but the woman inside told me I hit another car. I asked her where the car was and she pointed over the railing. I looked down and saw the car lying upside down in a ditch.”

JAKE: “No way!”

ERNIE: “Yeah.” (Pausing in troubled thought.) “The passenger was able to crawl out but the driver was trapped inside. They had to call the Jaws of Life to get her out.”

JAKE: “Holy crap.”

ERNIE: “Yeah dude,” (not smiling.) “I guess when I clipped her, she lost control of the car and drove off the side of the road into a steep ravine. Her car flipped over twice. If she had landed a few feet away, she would have rolled all the way down the ravine to the very bottom.”

JAKE: “But she wasn’t hurt?”

ERNIE: “No. She scraped her ear a little bit, but she was fine. An ambulance took her and her daughter to the hospital for some x-rays, but luckily they were OK.”

JAKE: “Did you go to the hospital?”

ERNIE: “No, it was dinner time so my wife and I drove to Denny’s.”

JAKE: “You were still able to drive your car?”

ERNIE: “Yeah. It slanted a little to the left, but it was still drivable. I had it towed back into Salt Lake. It’s totalled.”

His tone is casual, but his eyes are lost in troubled memory.

ERNIE: “It didn’t really hit me until the pancakes and syrup were placed on the table. I started shaking. I told my wife I couldn’t believe what just happened. It all seemed like a dream, you know. I could have killed somebody.”

JAKE: “Yeah, you’re lucky nobody was hurt. The Jaws of Life came and everything.”

ERNIE: “Dude, I know.”

He emailed me the news clipping from an online newspaper. It was only a paragraph in length and didn’t have a lot of details.

It’s startling how an extreme experience can alter a person’s reality. It makes them appreciate the day a little more, hug a loved one a little tighter, and shake off small irritations a little easier. Moments like these are what make life really sweet.

Thanks for sharing this one, Ernie.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My husband does not look like Ernie...I don't understand what this fixation is. That would be cool if he did look like Ernie though...then Ernie would be married to Jessica Alba :)