Yesterday I decided to do a good deed. My friend Craig (hi Craig!) had surgery on his leg last week, and he was feeling a little stir crazy, what with the whole not leaving his house for days at a time thing, so I drove down to Lower West Side of Chicago with some friends so we could take him out to eat. Nice, right? What do I get in return?

I almost get decapitated by a truck.

We’re driving along when all of the sudden we get detoured because of some stupid carnival. So we end up getting detoured around the thing, getting waved through intersections by homeless guys in orange vests who are making $5 an hour but acting like they’re cops. Yeah, thanks for waving me through, guy. You might want to turn around, though – you’re waving me directly into another homeless guy in an orange vest. Yeah, see him? He’s the one who’s telling me to stop. Yeah, great dude. Thanks for giving me permission to cross the empty intersection.

Anyway, so we’re turning down all these side streets trying to get around the carnival, when all of the sudden there’s a truck turning in front of me. It looked a little like this.

So we’re stuck at the intersection with absolutely nowhere to go and this truck is turning in front of us, slowly inching closer and closer to my car. The bottom of the trailer is just about at the right level to rip the top of my car off and crush all of our skulls. What is the appropriate response to that? What would rational thought tell you to do in that situation? Honk your horn, right? That’s precisely what horns are for – to alert other drivers. Perfect solution, right? Just lay on the horn to let the truck driver know that he’s about to decapitate me and my friends!

Sounds good in theory, but what actually happened was a little different. Rather than laying on my horn to stop awful things from transpiring, I opted instead to keep my foot firmly planted on the brakes and slap my window over and over again while repeating the words “please stop please stop please stop please stop!”

All of my friends laughed at me, but you know what? That was the best I could do under those circumstances. And you know what else? I don’t think that’s half bad. Whatever – apparently it worked.

The chinese food was really good, by the way, but the almost getting decapitated by a truck? That kinda sucked.