This metaphor cost $12K - and is well worth it

I was literally hit with a metaphor this week.
And just so I don’t bury the lede, the metaphor was about keeping my focus on what’s in front of me.
Now, you can go all philosophical on that and think that I’m talking about the future. And I am. You could also think I’m talking about distractions. And I am. And you could say I’m talking the people in my life. And I am.
But I can’t go further into the piece without addressing the ‘literal’ reference in the first sentence.
I popped over to the Central Lee vs. Fort Madison basketball games last Saturday at Central Lee High School. I’m a basketball nerd and would probably be sitting on someone’s bench if I wasn’t doing this. But getting to go to these games in the winter and talking to these coaches and players is a privilege. Let’s just get that out of the way.
But on this particular Saturday afternoon, after interviewing Ryan Wilson and Jonny Swanson, I headed out into the parking lot to get in my truck, and if you haven’t heard, I finally did get it back from Marion after getting sidelined for about two and a half months when I got diesel instead of unleaded at a gas station in Illinois. A claim that climbed to about $14,000, I might add.
I got in the truck that I consider my friend and backed out of the stall and started around the parking lot northbound with a natural curve to the west on my way to the highway. I saw Will Hayes, a senior post playing for the Hawks and having a solid year, walking to his car and I rolled down my window to say “Nice game, Will”.
He, being the nice kid he is, said “Thank you!” and waved.
Now Will’s about 6’7” and he clearly successfully navigated his way through that parking lot back to his car without running into the pole. So, that kid knew it was there.
No, “Hey Chuck, watch out!” or “Dude, there’s a pole right there", or “Dufus, WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING!”
Now that may have been out of respect for his elders and I’m just a little his elder, but I made the compliment and had just rolled the window back up when it happened.
I just missed colliding with that pole head on, but it caught the driver side front corner panel, and since I was turning toward the highway and into the pole it ripped off my abundant sideview mirror, shattered my driver’s side windshield, and left about a 12-foot by 4-foot dent, scrape, and scratch along the entire driver’s side of my truck - my friend, my confidant, my deejay, my therapist.
It all happened in slow motion and, once the screeching of metal and concrete came to a stop about half an hour later, I got out and on the ground laid my side view mirror. There was glass all over me and my seat. The door handle was nowhere to be found with just a hole where it used to be. The chrome siderail that goes under both the driver's and the back door as a step-up was bent under the frame.
I stood there and listened to all the “oh, mans!”, one lady I heard specifically say, “What a shame”. I'm happy, and a little surprised that no one came to see if I was okay. I wouldn’t have been able to deal with the abject humiliation of the event. I picked up the side view mirror gingerly, like the dad in A Christmas Story picking up the shattered plastic of his glowing leg lamp and threw it in the back seat. I reached in and grabbed my reporter’s notebook, while cussing to myself about what I had just done.
I used the notebook to carefully scrape all the fragments of glass off my seat. I looked down at Will who was standing against at his car about 40 yards away
“That’s your fault!” I said with a laugh.
He just threw his hands up in the air with his eyes wide at what he had just heard and then seen. I'm sure a "Whoa" was in there somewhere.
I carefully got into the truck. It was comical sitting down like that and just hoping something doesn’t poke into your leg – or worse.
The truck still was operational, but the electronics took a hit as the display read “Transmission not in park” the whole way back to Fort Madison. I think I gave it an e-concussion. “Transmission not in park, Transmission not in park.”
I was furious at myself for being so distracted as not to see this pole that I knew was there. I begged for Thanos to rewind time just three minutes with that green time stone thing. It didn't happen, but I'm seriously bummed when semis don't turn into Optimus Prime, too.
I’d even said to myself before, someone’s gonna hit that post. When I called Dr. Crozier to let him know I’d struck his property, he asked if I was okay and then said I wasn’t the first to hit it.
“Well…..”
I thought about going to the next board meeting in a sling and on crutches with some makeup on in protest of random pole-ings.
Anyway, on the way home, freezing because the window was stuck down and shattered, I started to notice a small irritation in my eye. ‘Great, now a stop at Urgent Care’. So I stopped there and they were awesome. They rinsed my eye, numbed it, put some dye in there and used this cyborg-like blue light thing to find any foreign objects left in my left baby blue which is now "50 shades of gray". The doc said she didn’t see anything in my eye, but told me to get to an optometrist if I still felt something in there going forward.
That night I had to wipe all the goop that had formed in my eye out and by morning I was good to go.
The point here is that we are all distracted and I just did $11,500 worth of damage to show me that my life is too full of distractions and I need to focus on what’s right in front of me - literally and figuratively. And I’m taking this whole thing that way. The metaphor is real.
Of course Will and Andy aren’t responsible for me driving right into a concrete pole that holds a metal sign indicating handicap parking that could probably just be a metal pole in the concrete without the six-foot foundation of solid concrete about a foot in a diameter placed there intentionally to keep people from not hitting the actual sign while they're distracted by a short compliment for Will Hayes on a cold January in Lee County.
That may be laying it on a little thick, but I’ve learned the lesson. Life is about keeping both hands on the wheel and eyes in front - literally and metaphorically – but that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.