Before I moved to Crescent Hill, I lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the corner of Bardstown Road and Edenside Avenue, not far from the Eastern Parkway intersection. It was an awesome place, within walking distance to Cherokee and Tyler parks, a grocery store, my dentist and doctor, a movie theater, a place to rent movies and too many bars to count, including Cumberland Brews (1576 Bardstown Road), my favorite spot in town. Point is, I never should have needed to get in my car. Ever.

One Sunday in January 2007, the day the Indianapolis Colts played the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship game, I decided to drive to ValuMarket for some snacks. ValuMarket is about three blocks from my old place. What a lazy ass I was. Anyway, I hopped in my car and prepared to make a left-hand turn onto Bardstown Road. Vehicles always park on either side of Bardstown, taking up every spot, which makes it impossible to see oncoming traffic. If you try to inch out, cars zip by your front bumper, missing you by no more than a foot. Terrifying. Then there's the cars moving in the opposite direction that you need to dodge.

I'd waited patiently to make this turn many times before, but on this day I decided to just go for it. "Screw it," I said out loud, although "screw" was actually the f-word. I slammed my foot on the gas pedal, making my tires screech a bit. That's when a college-age woman driving a Jeep Cherokee entered my vision. My Civic T-boned her. Her ride was fine; my front bumper was in the middle of the road, headlight glass littering the pavement. Not that I needed to be convinced, but my insurance company let me know it was my fault.

Maybe my problem that afternoon wasn't deciding to drive. Because if I would have taken another route, I could have made right-hand turns onto back roads the whole way to the store.