I have come to the conclusion that somewhere on my van is a target with HUGE arrows pointing at it and blinking "HIT HERE". It's obviously invisible to myself an the rest of my family, but other drivers on the road can see it, and feel the uncontrollable urge to comply.
Tuesday night, left work, picked up the kids, ran home for a few things, and had to go back out as Boopie had a 5:45 doctors appointment. Went to the appointment which went til 6:40 and started to head home. Decided it was too late to cook anything and asked the oldest boy where he would like to eat. KFC was the answer, which isn't far from the house. Ran through KFC and started on our way home to eat dinner.
It's hard to turn left out of the KFC as it's on a pretty busy road, so I turned right and decided to take one of the back streets. This is the route I take everytime I go to this restaurant, it's just easier, and I don't have to deal with as much traffic. As I approach one of the four way stops I see this old station wagon driving really irratically. He kept stopping in the middle of the road, weaving around and looking around him. I thought either A: he was lost or B: he was an idiot, but came to the conclusion that it was C: All of the above. I remained stopped at the sign watching him till he passed. I looked both directions, saw a car coming from the left, but he was far enough back and had a stop sign, so I went.
Close to the middle of the intersection the guy who had been coming from the left begins honking his horn. Not an intimidating honk, mind you, it was a Toyota Camry (meep meep) and I look to see him coming straight for me. I give the van gas in hopes to get out of his way, but....he smacked right into the drivers side rear tire. He hit me hard enough that I had been headed south, and by the time we stopped after the collision, we were facing north. A bit shocked and stunned I had the piece of mind to immediately dial 911.
The man gets out of his car and asks me if I'm OK, I say I think so, but that I hope my kids are alright. He gets a shocked look on his face and says "your kids are in the car?!?" and proceeds to explain that his brakes went out on his car, and he couldn't stop. I called my husband right after calling the police. I think I did OK remaining calm, but he could tell something was up. I told him what happened and where, and he said he'd be right there.
I backed the van up about 10 feet to get out from the middle of the road. That's all I needed, to get hit AGAIN while waiting on the police. Long story short, apparently the man who hit me had just bought the car, the guy driving irratically in the station wagon was his buddy, and by the way he was driving, hindsight says that they both probably knew something was wrong with the Toyota. The police let me go without a ticket (Thank God!) even though I figured they'd hit me with failing to yield since all of the witnesses who came out to make sure I was OK left (just like last time I got hit).
I've waited a couple of days to post on it because I was pretty upset about the whole thing, but today I finally pulled myself out of my funk and said "What's done is done. Not a damn thing you can do about it. Get your ass up and get over it." The funny part is I had to get a rental vehicle and they gave me.....a Kia Rio. This thing is so small it's like driving a damned GO CART! I feel like I'm going to give the hamster a heart attack when I drive it! I keep thinking I should look for the
chuck key and wind it up before I go anywhere.
Anywho, the boys are fine, I'm fine, and it could have been a hell of a lot worse.
Oh!! and I did get to say thing #149 of things I never thought I would have to say to my kids while waiting for the police to write up the accident report. Both boys were in the back seat when I hear Boopie say "OW! That hurt!" I should have know better than to ask what happened, but silly me, I asked.
"Clone hit my head with his head!" I look at both of them. Clone is still strapped in his car seat and Boopie has his own seatbelt on next to him. The only way they could have bumped heads was if Boopie moved close to his little brother. I look at both of them like they've grown a third eye and say "KEEP YOUR HEAD AWAY FROM YOUR BROTHERS HEAD!" and turn to my husband and one of the police officers (who has now come back with my license and insurance card) roll my eyes dramatically and say "yet another thing I never thought I'd have to say to my kids"
