365个英语简短小故事-204. Driver Loses Mabel

A fifteen-year-old boy was injured in a car accident when the minivan he was traveling in was hit by a pickup¹ truck at an intersection². The boy was taken to a nearby hospital. The paramedics said that it appeared that the boy had nothing more serious than a broken left leg, but that internal injuries were always a possibility. The boy was conscious and alert. His mother, who was driving, was uninjured. She said that the truck appeared out of nowhere, and she thought she was going to die. She turned the steering³ wheel sharply to the left, and the truck hit her minivan on the passenger side.

The driver of the truck was a 50-year-old man who was unemployed⁴ and apparently⁵ had been drinking—police found 18 empty beer cans inside the truck. The man denied drinking, but he failed the police test for sobriety. When asked to touch his nose with his arms outstretched and eyes closed, he was unable to touch any part of his head.

The handcuffed man asked the police if they knew where “Mabel” was as he was put into the back seat of the police vehicle. The police asked him if Mabel was his wife. He said, “She’s my dog, my dog! Where’s my baby?” A dog with a collar, but no identification, was found minutes later, half a block away. The man was taken to the city jail and booked on suspicion of driving while intoxicated⁶ and on causing an accident.

 

1 pickup   

n.拾起，获得

参考例句：

• I would love to trade this car for a pickup truck.我愿意用这辆汽车换一辆小型轻便卡车。||The luck guy is a choice pickup for the girls.那位幸运的男孩是女孩子们想勾搭上的人。

2 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

3 steering   

n.操舵装置

参考例句：

• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration. 他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。
• Steering according to the wind, he also framed his words more amicably. 他真会看风使舵，口吻也马上变得温和了。

4 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

5 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

6 intoxicated   

喝醉的，极其兴奋的

参考例句：

• She was intoxicated with success. 她为成功所陶醉。
• They became deeply intoxicated and totally disoriented. 他们酩酊大醉，东南西北全然不辨。