Eng 101 - Narrative Essay

Trevor George

ENG 101

Prof. Rosen

        After bouncing my car between the guard rails on the palisades parkway like a pinball, I realized it isn’t smart to drive on no sleep. Having fallen asleep at the wheel at four thirty in the morning, I awoke to find myself in a car going ninety miles per hour down the grass shoulder of an interstate parkway. When the car finally came to a stop after violently bouncing between the two guard rails lining the sides of the road, I stepped out and realized I was incredibly lucky to have only suffered a few minor cuts and scratches. While looking at the sorry sight that was my car after the crash, I tried to figure out how this could have happened. Only after letting out a long, exhausted yawn, I remembered that I hadn’t been to sleep at all the night prior. Due to a car accident caused by my negligence towards getting enough sleep, it occurred to me that serious consequences can arise from relatively minor decisions.

There are a few factors that lead me to be behind the wheel falling asleep on that early morning. Around the time of the accident, I was living at my home in Goshen, New York. I had recently quit my job at the pizzeria where I was working, and was in the market for a new job. Although I was living a lifestyle littered with drug abuse and irresponsibility, I managed to land a promising job as a utility worker for a company named Consolidated Edison. My specific position was located in Bronx, NY, which is around an hour away from where I was living. Most days I had to clock-in at six A.M sharp, so I would leave at four in the morning to allow for traffic and such. Even though I had to wake up so early for work every day, I was still partaking in my usual routine of staying up late, doing drugs, and everything else I shouldn’t have been doing. I felt that as long as I still had a good paying job, it didn’t matter if every other aspect of my life was a disaster. My life seemed to be going exactly the way I planned it. I was able to keep this up long enough to seem like a somewhat productive member of society, but I couldn’t keep it up forever.

The morning of my accident seemed just like any other day driving into work, until I began to nod off at the wheel. Just like any other day, I woke up and took a shower, brushed my teeth and got dressed, and headed outside towards my car. The sky that morning was completely black just like it usually was at that time of the morning. As I progressed onto the highway, I turned the radio to my favorite station and tried to get myself motivated for the day ahead. My drive to work was a time to try and pull myself together and get a grip on my thoughts. Most of the time, however, I was just thinking about when I could come home and repeat my disastrous cycle of bad behavior. By the time I had reached the exit to get onto the palisades parkway, the sky had lightened to a hazy, light blue. I noticed a slight mist building up on my windshield, and realized it was slightly drizzling outside. This type of depressing, rainy weather actually calmed me down quite a bit. Once I reached the palisades, it was smooth sailing as always. There was no traffic, no police to pull me over, and pleasant scenery. I’m not sure exactly when I had fallen asleep and drifted off the road to the shoulder, but I was rudely awakened by the strong vibrations sent by the bump strips on the side of the road. I swerved quickly to correct myself, and was suddenly completely alert. Since I had already fallen asleep once, I figured that I couldn’t possibly make such a stupid mistake again. I made a terrible mistake and continued driving