To begin with, on Monday night I put a load of Ben's school uniforms into the washing machine. And went to bed. Without taking the important step of removing them from the washer and putting them in the dryer. So we were running late Tuesday morning, and to top it off had to spend an extra five minutes hunting for Ben's jacket. Naturally. So Ben got to school just after the bell rang. I did a little bit of cleaning during the day, but not much since Olette's idea of playing involves bringing all of her toys out of her room into the living room. I finally decided I was fighting a losing battle. I managed to get the trash out and clean up the dog food that Wilbur left all over the floor and called it a day. Before long it was time to pick up Ben from school and that's when Murphy's Law decided it was time to play.
I didn't put a jacket on. I figured, it's 50 degrees, and I'm only leaving the car to run into the post office and drop off something at my parents' house. I didn't put a jacket or shoes on Olette because the errands were short enough that I could leave her and her brother in the car while I ran in. Before leaving, I looked at the new insurance cards that have been sitting on the bar for at least two weeks and thought, "I really need to put those in the cars..." but my arms were full of squirmy four-year-old, and I told myself, "I'll do it when I get home." (I tell myself this a lot. Ben comes by his absentmindedness honestly.) We went to pick up Ben and headed to town to take care of the errands. On our way, we passed Hubby who had gotten off of work early and was on his way home. There was almost no line at the post office. I started feeling lucky! I dropped off what I needed to leave at my parents' house and decided to take the back way home, since there was a better chance of getting stuck behind several school buses going the other way. So, of course, (thanks, Murphy!) I got stuck behind a school bus. I hate being stuck behind school buses: drive a quarter mile, stop ... drive a quarter mile, stop ... drive a quarter mile, stop. Finally, the bus turned and I saw nothing but open road ahead of me. I was master of the road, ruler of the street, and most importantly, almost home, where all I had left to do for the day was wash some dishes and make some spaghetti for dinner.
And then I saw it. Chevy Lumina, sort of a grayish-tan color, and about to pull out of a driveway. She didn't see me. After what felt like an eternity of squealing, skidding tires and ditch hopping, my truck came to a stop. I had felt her car hit us and I was almost afraid to check the backseat. "Everyone ok?" I asked. I heard two voices say, "Yeah," and when I turned around to look Olette asked, "Why'd you pull over?" I had to laugh. "Uh, you didn't notice that another car just hit us?" I asked. Olette shook her head. I got out of the car to check the damage and saw the other lady walking toward us. The damage was minimal. In fact, once Hubby showed up he said, "Oh my gosh, you have to take a picture of that!" (Side note: More interference from Murphy's Law again-- Hubby forgot his phone in the truck after our wasted trip to Daphne on Monday. I had to get ahold of a neighbor to go to our house and tell him what happened. I haven't decided whether it's lucky that he was off work early and happened to be at home, or bad luck that he wasn't still at work where it would have been much easier to get him on the phone.) So I did:
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| Even the fire/rescue guy who showed up said that was something he'd never seen before. The lady had a Bama tag on her front bumper that managed to get stuck to my wheel! |
The lady asked if we were all ok, and I assured her we were. I asked if she was ok. She said she thought so and apologized and said she didn't see me at all before she hit me. (Her story changed once the State Trooper showed up and she swore she saw me talking on the phone. I wasn't. And even if I was, how would she have known-- she didn't see me... wasn't that why she hit me?) The fire/rescue guys and the ambulance showed up and called for a State Trooper, and Hubby took the kids home with him, as it was 40-something degrees out by then and the only one of us with a jacket was Ben, and Olette was just in stocking-feet, and the fire/rescue guy had asked me to turn off my truck while he made sure there was nothing dangerous leaking or anything. I had to sit in the cold for about half an hour before I got the ok to turn on the truck again.
Not content with having convinced me to go out jacket-less, leave the new, not-expired-like-the-one-in-my-glovebox insurance card at home, and take the back way home from my parents' house to avoid school buses, Murphy's Law decided it had just one more trick up its sleeve. Naturally, one wouldn't expect a no-injury fender bender (well actually, less than a fender bender for me, but a complete front bumper loss for the other lady, so if this was math, it would probably just average out to fender bender, right?) to be on the very top of the list of priorities for the State Troopers on the best of days. But apparently the whole space-time continuum synced up just right yesterday afternoon, so not only did that lady pull out of her driveway just in time to hit me, but also just as the Troopers were changing shifts. It took an hour for a State Trooper to show up. ONE. HOUR. Half of that spent shivering in my truck. And of course, once the Trooper showed up, it took another half an hour to go through all the motions of insurance-taking, license checking, etc. Two hours after the initial collision, I finally got to go home. And I made the mistake of thinking, "Well, after two Monday-ish days in a row, tomorrow should be a breeze!" I probably should have knocked on wood before bed, but I like to think I'm not very superstitious.
Guess who, once again, forgot that a load of Ben's uniforms was in the washing machine? But it's ok. I had plenty of time to wait for them to dry. Because it turns out that, after idling in my already-low-on-gas truck for half an hour then driving the mile between where we got hit and home, I was out of gas. And had to wait until Hubby could leave work to bring me some.
After the week I've had so far, there's nowhere to go but up, right? *Excuse me while I knock furiously at my wooden desk.*
(***Edit: I just spent the past 10 minutes cleaning my kitchen floor as the dust receptacle on my vacuum cleaner just fell off for no reason as I was carrying the vacuum cleaner to the living room.***)
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