Daddy learns a lesson

I had a lot of time to think of a title for this post. "My neck hurts," was one early contender. "Everyone is okay, but the minivan is not" was another. Or, how about "We just got that thing fixed?" But Matthew picked a winner when he told me, "I think you learned a little lesson, didn't you, Dad?" Nothing like a little well-intended salt in the wound.

So: we were in an accident. Everyone is okay. The minivan is spending some more quality time at a body shop. I wanted to take it to the one we had it at after the teenager rear-ended Rachel, but I didn't remember its name. Rachel was on the ground in SLC but did not have her phone on, so I picked a shop that sounded sort of familiar.

The accident was 90% my fault. I made a left turn while looking to my right, assuming my left hand side was still clear. The guy was speeding, or it would have been, but still, totally avoidable if I had been following my father's First Rule of Driving: always look in the direction you are moving.

Everyone had their seat belt on. The only damage is to my head, which got a real wallop from my air bag -- my glasses went flying. Me pulling into a parking lot without glasses was probably the most dangerous part of the whole thing. (The cop saw the minivan, not all that much worse for wear, and commented, "the airbags went off for that?) I have the largest goose egg I've ever had right on the top left of my head. It hurts.

The kids are fine. Melissa is too short for the airbag to have hit her, even in her booster, and Matthew was on the other side where the air bags didn't deploy.

There was an Enterprise rental center about a mile down Nagcadoches from the accident so I had them pick us up and rented a small SUV for now. If the body shop isn't done by the time Rachel gets back we will have to trade up to something bigger; this doesn't have room for Issac with the boosters in.

I would be afraid of Rachel killing me but honestly this crosses over the Line Of Suck where you have screwed up so badly that people get sympathetic instead of calling you an idiot. Even the cop didn't give me crap about not having a Texas license yet. Both he and the guy who hit me kept asking if I was sure I had a way to get home. (It helps to have cute kids with you, I guess.)

The kids took it in their stride at first. Then, after we pulled over, it sunk in and Melissa started bawling that our car is broken. I reassured her that (a) it could be fixed and (b) if it couldn't we'd get another. Matthew took stock of the situation and said, "Boy, it's a good thing the library books didn't get ripped, or we'd really be in trouble!"

Good thing everyone has their sense of perspective intact.