it's the saturday after thanksgiving. my last day of 'stay-cation' in parker... i've been away from my home since wednesday night, the dogs and i staying at mom's house for the holiday and for convenience while i see clients at the church, which is in parker.
again, it's saturday. the night before, my computer had stopped working, just out of the blue, so i had to visit the geek squad early in the morning, after realizing that my 9:00 client was not going to show up (i gave up waiting around... 10:00? i'm a sucker for people that are late, as it is usually me making people wait...)
anyway, it's been a long day already, right? i mean, stood up, crashed my whole computer, spent over a hundred dollars backing up my data, and killing time in parker before i leave....
so it's saturday night and i am ready to leave. it's dark and verrry cold outside, maybe less than twenty degrees outside. i pack my life up into the trunk, backseat and passenger side of my car, filled to the brim with dog beds, bags, turkey left overs and over-excited/under-exercised dogs- one with a cone on her head from her recent spay.
i say goodbye to jim, hop in the car with the girls and off we go. about five minutes and two miles later, i'm sitting at the stop light, which is red. i begin to return a text to a friend, and glance up at the traffic light. it's turned from red to green, so i punch on the gas and get ready to go as i quickly look down to check the text. just one more letter...
green...
green means go...
BAM!
my phone flies across the car, i jerk forward, as i look up to see the red trunk of the saturn in front of me, illuminated by my headlights, pop up and bounce up and down, refusing to shut. i've definitely hit the car in front of me, no matter how many times i close my eyes and try to turn back time.
great news! i did not only just rearend a car in dark, cold evening with my two dogs in the back, but i rearended a student driver- a car with a poor little 15 year old driver and two driver instructors.
we pull over to the turn lane and a man and myself get out of the cars to inspect the damage. he ignores me for a few moments, bouncing the trunk hatch up and down a few times, slamming it a few times in vain. i look at my car, and realize it's absolutely fine, just a bent license plate.
i ask the man if he is ok, and profusely apologize. he rudely looks at me and tells me he is fine; the driver is fine. he asks if i am ok and i say yes, and then he gets back in his car without a word. i return to my car, feeling like a big, mean ogre of a jerkface that just hit a poor, helpless little kid in a car.
'but i didn't mean to!! it was an accident! i'm sorry! if everyone is ok, it's really not that big of a deal! it's a student driver car anyway, so you will be fine!' my head says. instead, i just sit in my car.
of course, because it's a student driver, and the instructor must 'instruct' on the correct procedures, the cops are called and i wait for twenty minutes or so for them to show up.
please note that in this whole time, my dogs are still in the backseat, by this time getting completely antsy and barky.
the cops pull up; one gets out of the driver side and comes to ask me for my stuff. as i hand him my registration, i realize that it expired in october. apparently i didn't change my address with the dmv and my mail forwarding didn't work, so i didn't even realize how late i was. thankfully, there is a 30 grace period, and it was still november (for two more days), so technically i was safe. great!
so cop goes back to car, and then out of the other side, another cop steps out. this one comes over, walks right past me and i realize she has no badge or typical cop-bling. as she passes by me, and begins talking to the instructor, i realize: she's a cop in training!!
so let's just refresh here: i've had a client stand me up, my computer die and have to be repaired (2-3 week turnaround at the least, he said), my cone-head puppy and her older sister guard dog are in the car, i've been in the car, sans heat, for about 30 minutes or so, waiitng because i hit, out of EVERYONE, a student driver, and now... and NOW.... the student cop gets to walk us all through the night! almost an hour later (a total of 2ish house between when i hit the car to when i got to leave), the student cop tells the other drivers to leave, and they drive off with their trunk tied to the body of the saturn. they don't give me even a second glance, and treat me like i killed someone. but all i did was bump the girl in front of me?
God grant me serenity....
in the end, it all worked out. instructor jerkface guy wasn't really being mean, just didn't have social graces; student cop didn't do anything wrong, just took for-ev-er; the dogs calmed down after the first hour of sitting and flashing cop lights; my registration was NOT expired (just in time); there was little damage to my car; i'm insured, and life has gone on. i even got out to apologize to the student driver, just so she knew i'd been there too and it IS hard, but it's really not too big of a deal.
so. lesson learned only two days before the 'no texting and driving' law went into affect. :)
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