Bye Bye Honda.

I should have known. There were so many signs and omens. The other day on the freeway I saw a truck just like the one we bought, on the back of a flatbed, crushed like a boulder had fallen from the side of a mountain and landed on top of it. I thought, that would suck. Then there was the way the Honda slid on the way to the gym, going around a corner, and I thought, oh I am so glad a car wasn't right there. And then the way I said goodbye to the girls after yoga, "Bye! Drive safe!"
"Yeah, you too!"
Big smile, and out the door I went.
I saw all the snow. I started to back out of the parking space and realized my back windshield was covered, so I stopped and got the scraper out and brushed the snow off. The car next to me was also pulling out with a snow covered back windshield, and I shook my scraper at them, indicating I'd brush off theirs too but they shook their head no. They are not being safe like me, I thought as I threw the scraper into my backseat.
I was so sick of this darn snow. I was so sick of going five miles an hour. And the snow was fresh, so I figured it wasn't too slippery. I should have known, given the fact God gave me one more last warning, coming around that same corner, I slid over to the other side of the road. Once again, I thought how great it was that there wasn't a car there, and I kept on going, turning my premium sound system up.
I think I was almost drunk on happy endorphins from my class. I wasn't even really thinking about the snow, other than it was the only thing making this night a little irritating.
The night was dark and cold and I could see the bits of snow hitting my windshield, flying into my headlights. I was alone on a long road, enjoying my music, thinking about dinner.
Before I knew it there was a turn. I knew a hill came after it, but it was too late, my car started to slip, and then I saw three sets of headlights coming up at me in the opposite direction. I started spinning, my car picking up speed as it slid like a little ice cube down the icy street. I'm sure I hit my breaks too hard.
I knew it was bad, that I was going to hit one of those cars. I screamed--Oh shit oh shit oh shit-BANG!
Then I spun some more before I stopped. Something was beeping, some lights were flashing, my stereo hiccuped but then kept playing, Kenny Chesney's voice filling the cold dark air.
Oh my god.
I tried to open my door but it wouldn't budge. I reached inside my purse for my phone, my hands shaking like my legs did after labor. I dialed Joey's number, hoping I was hitting the right buttons. He didn't answer, I left a message. "I got in an accident..." When he called back he was pissed. I could hear Noah crying in the background.
I crawled over and got out through the passenger side. I walked quickly on the wide street up to the Toyota Tacoma I hit. There were three little faced in the back seat looking out the window at me in absolute fear. I am so sorry...One of them was holding his nose.
After calling Joey back a couple of times, me finally getting it through to him that it was pretty bad, that I was shaken up enough to not be able to think clearly about what the heck we were even supposed to do, he packed up the boys and came out.
In the meantime, some really nice angel people stopped and got me and the pieces of my car out the middle of the road. They picked up my bumper and my tail lights, and the big pieces of my my back windshield that I had so carefully cleaned five minutes before. I didn't realize all this junk they were picking up was mine until I happened to glance at the driver side of my car, which pretty much looked like a big transformer had just punched it in.
My chest hurt, and so did my knee. We sat in the smashed Tacoma as we waited for the tow trucks to come (I have to say my Honda did a pretty good job of totalling the Toyota truck), and realized my pant leg was wet, right at my knee. I didn't want to look--this has happened to me before--I cut my leg bad when I was ten years old with a 1/2 inch piece of glass, all the way to my bone. I didn't even realize I had done it until my pant leg was soaked in blood and I pulled it up to see. That was the flash back I was having as I lifted my pant leg up. It wasn't that bad though.
Joey got there and was much more sympathetic to me once he saw the Honda. The boys were so good, even though we sat out there for two hours. Noah barely cried, a miracle since he hates being in his car seat in a stagnant vehicle. We're talking screaming at a stop light that lasts longer than seven seconds.
In the middle of calling Triple A, another tow truck out looking for idiots who drive too fast in the snow came. He said he worked for Triple A, but the dispatcher couldn't find his company in their system. As we went back and forth, I got the feeling I was in the middle of a bidding war as the two companies capitalized on my carelessness. That pissed me off.
We got home at eleven PM, put the boys to bed, and I took a hot bath. Two Tylenol later, Joey and I fell into bed.
And now we are in the process of dealing with insurance and used car salesmen, people I absolutely love to spend my weekends with.
Oh, one more thing. Ethan always comes with me to the gym on Monday nights. He likes to play in the child care while I teach. But last night he was putting together his new Lego set with daddy, and he said he didn't want to go. Well, OK.
It was his door that got slammed, his car seat that was filled with glass from the back windshield. God is so good to me, even when I am careless and stupid, He spares us so much pain.