Something finally happened to me, anyway. I was in an accident today, this afternoon. Not an experience I'd care to repeat, but I am okay, and (add an incredulous giggle here) so is my car.I did about a zillion things today, all day; both the Hubs and R were going to be away and not home until after dinnertime probably (although R got home earlier.) In the morning, I bought something at BestBuy that turned out not to work right (don't laugh at me; I usually have good luck there) and so in my afternoon travels, I set out to return it, but to a different store, the one on Route 17.
Route 17 is kind of the shopping mecca of Bergen County, and on a Saturday afternoon, it's more or less bumper to bumper. I had just merged back into the highway after doing a different, pre-BB errand at another store, and I thought to myself, this is an accident waiting to happen; there must be several here every Saturday afternoon. I looked up and noticed that I was a few feet (or more, hard to judge that stuff) from the van in front of me.
Except a second later, I heard a BOOM and I was sliding into the van. As happens in an accident, I had no idea what was going on. Should I press a pedal? Which one? Next minute, I was bouncing back into the car that had originally hit me, and then I bounced forward again into the van. Then I put my car in park and waited for someone to tell me what to do while I caught my breath. The only thing that hurt was the band across my sternum where the seat belt had rather forcefully held me back.
Yada yada, turns out there were four cars involved altogether; the one right behind me had started it by hitting me, I hit the van, the van hit another car in front of it. We pulled off into the driveway of a parking lot, and then into the lot. The man in the van -- his wife was driving -- was out on the road immediately, and picked up the license plate off the front of my car, which was on the ground, and put it aside for me. He also called the police.
That's when the downpour started. I took my hearing aids off, since I was going to be standing in the rain for awhile.
I was still mostly very sad, because I figured this was the end for my little car. It's nine years old, I haven't had collision on it in years. Whatever the damage, it would not be worth it to repair. I got out in the rain and walked around it slowly.
Not. A. Scratch.
How could this be? I opened and closed every door and they fit right. I put the license plate inside on the dashboard; it was apparently the only calamity. I was pretty psyched at this point. I looked at the other cars, the ones in front of and behind me. Well, I had already seen that the back of the van was smashed; that's probably why I expected to see a lot of damage on my car. But I took my first look at the car that hit me, that started the whole thing.
A big black Escalade with the grille smashed in. It had hit the spare tire hanging on the back of my car dead on. Listen, do not buy an Escalade. That thing was made of tissue paper.
No one was hurt, not in all four cars, although the older couple in car 1 said something about her back hurting. Yeah, well, my back hurts all the time, pretty much since 1972. If I hurt my back in a little fender-bender like that, I wouldn't even know it. Yes, my neck hurts a little. It did all morning, too. Anybody I can blame that on?
I'm just achy and sore now, and will be for a few days, I suppose, as anybody is when their body absorbs an impact like that. It's like when you take a fall, you might hurt your arms or leg or whatever you fell on, but your whole body hurts afterward. I think it comes from tensing all our muscles tightly as soon as we have that first inkling that something happened. Some sort of reflexive response.
I actually did go on and do my return after the nice police officer let me go; I wanted not to dwell on it, or sit at home and stiffen up, but most especially I wanted to keep driving because I wanted so desperately not to. I had to merge right back onto the highway in that same traffic, when what I really wanted was to call the Hubs and say "Wah! Come and pick me up!" Good thing he was away all day in south Jersey; I didn't even call him on the cell from the scene until I was sure I was okay and all, because I knew he was an hour and a half away and would freak out if I needed him right away and he couldn't get there. He got home a little after 7, and I think was apprehensive. He had called me before he left to come home too. Whaddaya know.
Anyway, the first thing I really wanted when I stepped out of the car was a cigarette, but I held back from polling the accident participants to see if anyone had a menthol I could grub. I did, however, stop on the way home for a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough cone at Baskin Robbins.
