This Shit Happens to Me Every Day

So the story I’m about to tell you is true. Every word I speak, I promise, is the truth.
It’s been a week since that day, and I’ve had time to digest everything that went down.
And like I said — this shit happens to me every day, so it doesn’t always hit me all at once.

It was Sunday. The one thing my son really needed was a new laptop.
He’d been using the same one the school gave him in middle school, so I thought,
yeah, I can’t afford it — but you need a new laptop.

So I slipped into my Doc Martens and my Costco Calvin Kleins,
handed the boy the car keys, and we headed to Best Buy.
Oh—and the cowboy hat.
A Stetson felt, crushable. The grey one I bought in Tombstone, Arizona.
But that’s beside the point. The hat comes in later.

Things have been different around the house lately — a lot of emotions flying around,
a lot of words that, for some reason, needed to be spoken.
My son had some stuff on his mind that he wanted to talk about.

So we drove, and he brought it up. He let it out.
I tried to help him see it from my side.
We got lost somewhere along the way, had to turn around —
a fifteen-minute drive doubled — but it was worth it.
I cried a bit, but whatever. He got what he needed, and I was happy.

Sometimes you just have to let it out.
And as a dad, you’ve got to let your son do it.
Doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t respect you.
He’s sixteen, and emotions are hard — even for the best of us.
You know it. Don’t say you don’t.

But where was I?
Oh yeah — Best Dad in the World.

We make it to Best Buy.
They don’t have what he wanted. Phew.
That one was over budget anyway.
I still would’ve bought it — payments, am I right?
But after what felt like a nine-hour conversation with a salesman at Canada Computers,
he made a decision.

And score — saved me five hundred bucks.
Day’s looking up.

I picked up a few odds and ends — not for me,
stuff for the kid’s ’67 Impala.
Go figure: I’m broke, but this kid’s driving around like Dean Winchester.

Anyway, we’re good. Kid’s good.
How could he not be? I just bought him a laptop.

So we’re driving north on Thickson, just crossing over the 401,
when an SUV barrels across the road in front of us.
It smashes through a traffic light pole, jumps the on-ramp,
and finally comes to a stop on the grass.

I stop the car right there in the middle of the road,
tell my son to stay put — oh right, I was driving this time —
hit the hazards, and dart out.

Picture this: a middle-aged dude with a limp, dressed way too cool for his age —
Doc Martens, baggy Costco jeans —
and a cowboy hat flying in the wind behind him
as he bolts out of his 2021 Kia Stinger.
(Okay, the car’s cool. You can’t say anything bad about the car.)

I get to the SUV, and it’s completely upside down.
Inside is a pregnant mother driving and her daughter strapped in a car seat.
I’m one of the first people on the scene — nobody knows what to do.
But my instincts kick in. Big picture — that’s me.
I look around, assess what’s most urgent, and it comes to me.

The car’s sitting on a grade; it wouldn’t take much to roll it.
Without thinking, I give it a push, and it rolls upright.
I pry the back door open and pull out the screaming child.
By the time I get her around to where people are helping her mother,
she’s starting to calm down.

Mom’s got a gash on her head,
so I take off my shirt and press it to the wound.
Sirens in the distance, a crowd gathering — everyone’s okay.
And then I remember: I left my son in the middle of the road.

I look around. “Everyone got this?”
Then I start running back.
My son looks at me and goes, “What the fuck?”
And I say, “Bro, sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

We drive off. He’s mad because he’s late getting to his girlfriend’s house.
So yeah — life lessons, lives saved,
and it only cost me fifteen hundred for a laptop,
one of my favourite shirts,
and getting yelled at by the kid I love most in the world.

But hey — that’s fatherhood.

And like I said, everything I said here is true…
Well, except for the SUV with the mom and baby.

Yes, there was a car wreck.
Yes, it crashed into a traffic light pole.
But it was an old man and his adult son coming back from hockey.
Everyone was mostly okay.
But I did get blood on my hands.

And hey — if you don’t believe me,
Fact Check Me.