The Legend of Crash Test Dummy
- jasonleewillis
- 4 hours ago
- 6 min read
Once, there was this boy who
Got into an accident and couldn’t work at Dominos.
But when he finally came back
A deer crept out of the black into the bright lights
The dent was quite obvious
He said it was from when
The deer hit his door so hard.
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
Oh, deer!
So in the winter of 1993, I earned the nickname “Crash Test Dummy” after one bizarre week working as a delivery driver at Dominos. For those of you born after 1993, the Crash Test Dummies was an alternative rock band with a couple bangers like “Superman” and “MMMM,” which was on the radio all the time.
Most of us at Dominos had a nickname, and for my first year, I’d be greeted by Dan the Man and Tugger with the cry “FREE WILLY.” (Willis=Willy=that Michael Jackson whale…whatever). After three accidents in a week, I think I preferred Free Willy to Crash Test Dummy.
The first accident: It wasn’t my fault. Seriously. I was driving my wife’s Hyundai Scoupe, which was a zippy yellow two-door sports car. 30 minutes or less? No problemo with that car. Unfortunately, this story is set during the winter. At the corner of Monks and Balzerzak, there’s a stop light, and I was returning back to the store after making a run. There’d been some light snow, and it’d compacted, leaving an icy glaze in the turning lane. I knew this. But the guy behind me? No clue. In my rear view mirror, I saw him approach too fast and slide right into me. It was a minor fender bender that insurance would cover, but I had to fill out the paperwork with my Dominos manager since it happened while I was on the clock.
The second accident was just stupid. Working at the MSU Dominos meant there was a ton of money to be made on drunk college kids coming back home from the bars with nothing in their fridge. Dominos to the rescue! There are some frat houses down the hill on Stadium avenue, and in the midnight hour, it's a quick run without hardly any traffic. I dropped off the pizza and was returning to the store when I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye.
It was a deer.
Stadium hill is wooded, so it wasn’t the first time I’d seen deer crossing the road. Now, I wasn’t flying. I was driving the company truck, and after constant use 12 hours a day 365 days a year, this truck had seen its better days.
I stepped on the brakes.
The deer stopped.
After you, sir.
I wasn’t in a hurry, so I decided to be a gentleman and let the deer pass.
But he just stood there.
Perhaps he’d ingested a discarded joint and was high? He just stood there.
Well, I suppose I should get going. I put the truck back into gear, and just then…AHHHH!
The deer dropped a pound of pellets as he looked into the bright lights of death incarnate coming right at him. "OMG MTF MF SOB. I’m GUNNA DIE," thought the deer!
He launched himself right into the passenger door of a stopped vehicle.
The idiot.
It got back up and bounced right back into the woods, still high as a kite.
(You know you’re in Kato when the deer are high, too).
That was accident #2.
I don’t remember whether Tugger had dubbed me CRASH TEST DUMMY at that point or not, but the two of us had a slightly antagonistic relationship after I questioned him about the inappropriate tone of his nickname, which he clarified was a baseball nickname related to hitting foul balls or something. Well, Tugger was my manager, and I had to fill out another accident report after the deer.
The third accident defied all logic. Seriously, when I had to tell folks how the third accident happened, it sounded like I made it all up. Tugger definitely didn’t believe me, which is why he was cursed to discover the meaning of situational irony.
It was still winter, and this night, the snow opened up on Kato. While folks tend to stay home during a heavy snowfall, things get hopping at Dominos. There is good money to be had when the weather is bad.
The Gage dorms were two thirteen story towers chock full of hungry teens. After a certain hour, we only delivered to the lobby, so it was supposed to be a quick in-and-out delivery. To make things more efficient, we had two sets of keys during the winter. You see, these used-and-abused company trucks took so much damage that the heaters were problematic, so our solution was to leave the truck running, lock the door when we left, and use the spare key to get back in.
I know, I know, you can see where this story is heading.
Sure enough, I drop off the pizza, step back outside, and…no truck.
It was GONE!
My immediate assumptions? It was that stupid deer from accident #2. Or perhaps even a drunk college kid broke in. After all, I KNOW I locked it. I KNOW I did.
Like that stoned deer from accident #2, I froze in place.
Wait a second…
Do you remember how I said it was snowing?
Well guess what? I could see my footprints and ONLY my footprints. A break in would’ve required walking over to the door, but nothing, nada, zilch. That theory crumbled.
Taking a few steps closer, the crime scene became even more confusing. While there weren’t any footprints besides my own, there were two sets of tire tracks, but neither of them showed the truck had exited the oneway loop in front of Gage.
Huh?
My eyes began to follow the tracks. Both sets paralleled each other for twenty yards or so, but at the point where I’d pulled into the horseshoe, one set veered right and the other…
There it was…
My truck!
Some drunk, idiot college students had broken in, put it in reverse, and backed up out of the parking lot only to run into a parked car. The nerve of those guys!
Unfortunately, there were still no footprints.
“A ghost, officer, a ghost broke into my truck”.
When I got to the truck, the door was still locked. In fact, the truck was still running. What in the world happened?
Unfortunately, I had a good idea what’d happened, but Tugger wasn’t believing any of it.
Do you remember all that abuse these poor delivery trunks endured? Well, I’m not a mechanic, but I remember how soft the automatic transmission felt. That shifting knob was wobbly. So when you’d go from park to drive or drive to park or drive to reverse, that baby would wiggle. I’d complained. Other drivers knew about it also.
“There you go,” Tugger said smugly. “You must’ve put it into reverse before you stepped out of the truck.”
“No. no, no, No, NO, NO!. Don’t do that!” I defended my delusion. “The reverse lights would’ve turned on. It would’ve started moving. I did not leave it in reverse. It shifted on its own, Tugger. Negligence! It’s the company’s fault.”
Well, that’s how I earned the nickname Crash Test Dummy.
(Oh, I almost forgot.)
Situational Irony!
A week or two later, I was driving my own car again, and somebody else was driving the Domino’s truck. As it so happened, it was a slow night.
As a manager, Tugger never left the store. He was the guy who made the pizzas.
Ross, I think, was the other driver. It was slow, and we were just standing around, eating breadsticks, waiting for the next run. 10-15 minutes pass.
Then, in the darkness of night, a pair of sinister eyes appeared in a curtain of black.
Wait, no, those aren’t eyes. Those are reverse lights.
That stupid truck sat there for 10-15 minutes idling, and then, out of the blue, it shifted from park into reverse.
“Ha! I TOLD you so.” I was vindicated.
Oh, but it got even better. Not only did it happen right in front of Tugger’s eyes, but then, it did the same back-up thing…and ran right into his parked sports car.
Irony fulfilled.
At least that’s how I remembered it.
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