Riederer uses humor to humanize the narrator. It is not uncommon for people to cope with horrible accidents by joking about it. In fact, just the third sentence in, the narrator gives the reader a hint of humor immediately after the bus ran her over, “It is easy to be calm because I cannot really have been run over by a bus” (Riederer 2). The reader then sympathizes with the narrator because of all the ways to get hurt, being run over by a bus is seen as pretty funny and a little pathetic. It’s understandable that the narrator would also think that her situation is unfortunate, but still funny. When the narrator is being treated in the ER, she’s still in an incredible amount of pain, “…a beady-eyed nurse says that she put morphine into the