Sometimes you decide to go to the gym because you had a really good day yesterday and might as well keep the momentum up after some great work news and even better political news and then as you’re driving through an intersection some woman runs a red light and you say, “Oh shit!” — you actually say those words, but what else is there to say, really… I mean, you could say, “Bitch, what are you doing running that red light?” I guess — but anyway, you slam on your brakes but then it’s actually happening — you plow into her with the time-slowing-down that brain scientists talk about and the bone-rattling metallic CRUNCH and your airbag goes off in your face and you’re spinning and then you stop but your horn won’t shut off and there is smoke everywhere and you somehow make it to the curb and part of you doesn’t understand what’s happening and what you’re supposed to be doing and why is your hood at that angle and what’s on fire? The girl is now getting out of her car and so do you but she doesn’t speak English so you just wait dumbly on the curb, shaking, but luckily a cop was standing on the corner and saw the whole thing and suddenly there are ambulances and everyone is asking you if you’re okay and you’re rubbing your arm and the paramedic points out that you have burns from the airbags and there is green stuff leaking everywhere — from the car, not you. Cops come and go and eventually the woman’s boyfriend or husband shows up and says he’s sorry to you as he leads her crying form away. You eventually get bored, oddly, and you stop shaking and you start to gather things like the new big pack of gum you just bought and cds still in the changer and as you stare at your twisted and wrecked car — the one you bought only because someone stole your last one — you realize, well, at least now you’re not going to have to go to the gym.

You also realize that this desire you’re feeling to find greater meaning in the completely random but violent collision between two very different people from two very different walks of life is exactly the impulse that lead Paul Haggis to write a shitty movie like Crash so it’s probably in everyone’s best interest if you just put down the laptop, smoke a bowl, and watch some TV.