So I wrecked the Saturn

Very sorry, Pati, to have wrecked the car you took such good care of. Very sorry, Keith, to have wrecked the car you drive to work. Very sorry, Vince, to have hit you when you were minding your own business.

At first Vince was cussing me out and I didn't mind. I rolled down the window, assured him I didn't do it on purpose, said I was very sorry, and asked him if he could call the police.



Vince called the police. I put the emergency flashers on because though I had conveniently moved his car out of the traffic, mine was still half in the inside lane. A nice man who seemed Middle Eastern stopped to make sure I wasn't wounded, and helped me get out of the passenger side. My glasses were kinda broken. I didn't notice until after I climbed over the gear shift and all and got out of the half-sprung door and looked back and saw the parts on the floor by the clutch pedal. The lenses were out and the plastic frame was too bent to pop them back in. I wasn't scratched or bruised.

So Vince and I got out and talked a bit, and his wife came by (I guess maybe he had called her, because both of us lived very near there). I called Holly. She was at the hairdresser watching Brett get a haircut. He was just about done, and they had two cars, so she sent him to get Keith (which is where I had been going, because he had taken his motorcycle to the repair shop and I was going to pick him up and bring him home), and she went to the house to get my other glasses and bring them to me so I could tell a vehicle registration from a proof of insurance card. Having Holly there made it much better.



Weren't the sky and mountains pretty today? And there's that "Cultivate Mindfulness" sticker I got because it was just like Kelli Traaseth's, and the "Got Virtue?" sticker Ben Emerson gave me. I mindlessly and rudely wapped another guy's car with Keith's car.

Vince and I are both okay but it was not good. The very nice young policeman pointed out cheerily that I hit Vince at the best angle, because if I had pulled all the way out the other car would have t-boned me and I would've been hurt. I think that was euphemistic for "dead." So I pointed that out to Vince, who was initially pretty pissed off that I had hit him. I told him even though it would have still been my fault he might have hit and killed me and he would've felt bad. He agreed. It cheered us both right up.

And although his car had a broken axle, mine was ugly but still driveable. Not in the dark, because the headlights are pointed at imaginary things.

By the time the tow truck came to get Vince's car, Keith and Brett had walked up there from the house. Holly drove Brett back, but Keith walked me home because I didn't want to get in a car. He went back with bailing wire to put the car together enough to drive it home.

I called USAA. Then Vince's insurance agent called me. Was there a citation? No, I said, but did she think I might get one in the process of the police report? I didn't run the stop sign, but Vince did have the right of way. She said she's never seen that happen.

Vince called after a while to see if I was okay and to tell me he had no hard feelings and accidents happen and he wanted to make sure I wasn't feeling too guilty. It really did make me feel better that he called. I was going to call him later to say I had asked about a rental car for him.

As such things go, we both walked away, and although he's horribly inconvenienced, I'm glad he doesn't hate me. And although Keith is inconvenienced and it will cost us money, he will eventually love me just as much as he ever did.

I cleaned the hot tub today and so I will sit in that later and my knee will feel better. Tomorrow Holly will take me to pick up a copy of the police report and to see if the optometry folks can fix my glasses, or get me some new ones. The bifocals are the ones she brought me. The purple prescription reading/computer glasses are the ones that didn't survive.

These purple glasses are in three pieces:


The photo is from yesterday. Nice record of some glasses I really liked.