While driving on the freeway this morning, I saw a large wooden spool with wires or cables wound around it. It was rolling across the freeway. I was in the left-most lane, and the spool rolled from the dividing wall across my lane without being hit by the car in front of me, and I thought, “Whew, I’m safe.” It rolled into the lane to my right, and the moron drove right into it. I watched it break and ricochet in a diagonal beeline directly at my car! There was no avoiding it. I cringed as I heard the “BADA-CLUNK!” I don’t know how many pieces of it hit the right front of my car, or what happened to it after it hit. But I was pissed. I wasn’t going to get out to check my car, so I finished the 35 minute drive home and dreadingly came out to look after I’d parked in the garage.

The damage is small chips into the paint in the right corner bumper, as if someone jabbed a metal pen into it repeatedly, and a scrape around the corner of the bumper. Most of the scrape wiped off, but some light scratches remain. ARGH! I guess I’ll be Zaino-ing my car this weekend with Z5 scratch remover! I hope it comes out!! At least it was in the corner where it could do the least damage. If I had sped up, it would’ve hit the side of my car and probably dented it and left a longer scratch. If I’d slowed down, it would’ve hit across the front of my car and scraped up the length of the front bumper, or worse, bounced up and hit my hood and windshield. So thank heavens for mitigating blessings.

I think the most interesting thing in all this is what happened in my mind as soon as I got over the shock of the impact. I immediately thought to call Mr. W, but I realized my purse was in the back seat so I dropped that idea. Then I thought, “I’m gonna blog this.” Some years ago, when I was having a very rough breakup, I had no energy to go to the gym or to go out and socialize at lunchtime, so I just sat in my car in the parking structure to be alone. Next thing I knew, a public defender getting into his SUV parked to my right opened his door into my car so hard that it shook my car for several seconds. Incredulous, I stepped out of my car and walked around it to him. He looked up at me. “You know you just hit my car, right?” I said, forcing a calmness that was very apparently…well…forced. He played dumb. I almost lost it. I didn’t speak to that public defender for almost a year afterwards. But my point is that after this happened and he pulled out and left to lunch, I sat back in my car and the same thoughts ran through my mind. I wanted to call my significant other and tell him about this. But we were breaking up. So I couldn’t. And the helplessness of not having someone to help shoulder my emotional burden just cracked me and I sat there and cried. That was, of course, before I had a blog.