Have you seen that AllState commercial...?

"TURN YOUR FUCKING CAR OFF! TURN YOUR FUCKING CAR OFF! TURN OFF THE ENGINE! STOP STOP STOP! TURN YOUR FUCKING CAR OFF!!!"

I heard this through my open windows last night. It was my Aunt Jane yelling to the man who had driven through her bedroom window. Living almost directly above the scene prevented me from fully assessing the situation and I honestly thought the man had just hit the wall where the boiler room is located.

Much to my surprise, a wobbly 60-something-year-old man had driven his car into Aunt Jane's bedroom window located just off the alley beside our apartment building.

Luckily, the bedroom was empty of people as it was not quite nine and Aunt Jane was hanging about her living room. Most importantly nobody was hurt. The driver was shaken and stirred. Aside from yelling for the man to turn the car off because smoke, exhaust and antifreeze were pouring into her bedroom, Aunt Jane was the picture of calm.

As Aunt Jane says with a laugh, her bedroom looks like Beirut without the bodies. There is glass everywhere; embedded in the opposite wall 16 feet away. Antifreeze permeates the air. Shards of mortar mix with glass. There are tire marks on her drapes. The force of the crash ripped the closet door off; strangely, the hinges and splinters of wood are still attached to the wall, but the door is not attached to ...well the door is not attached to anything. It flew across the room.

She and I cleaned all morning. Vacuuming everything, laundering, finding glass in the most bizarre places was a good release, and though I've now seen the wreckage, it's not easy to wrap your head around tire tracks on the inside of your window sill.