Crunching My Car

I did a rather stupid thing this weekend – and it’s entirely my own fault, too. I can’t place the blame anywhere other than on my own shoulders, because I know better than to talk on the phone while driving. I know that! Yet, that’s what I was doing.

I was leaving the movie theatre (I’d just seen The Thing! = what a fabulous movie), following Lorna as she headed out the parking lot on her way to where we were to meet up for a late lunch. I thought she had gotten into the turn lane, but she didn’t turn – so then I thought, “Well, perhaps it isn’t the turn lane after all.” and followed her.

Turns out it was the turn lane.

She had to scramble to merge into traffic before hitting the curb, and I – for whatever reason – turned my car into the on-coming lane! Well, I knew that wasn’t a good thing, so I quickly decided to jump the median and get into the proper lane.

Apparently, the median is taller that the bottom of my car. I made it up onto it with one set of wheels, but they stepped off before the second set got on – so I totally crunched the bottom of my car.

Oh gosh, it sounded bad!

And the whole time this is happening (which took all of like 3 seconds, mind you) I’m still on the phone talking to Rob.

“Oh Sh*@!” I said, “I think I just wrecked my car!”
"What?!” he exclaimed.
“No, I’m serious – I think I just wrecked my car!!!”

I managed to pull it over onto the side of the road to wait for his arrival, and even called Lorna to let her know I wouldn’t be joining her for lunch. Thankfully, both Lorna and Rob came to my rescue. We determined that it wasn’t as bad as I’d originally feared, and that no fluids were leaking.

There are several lessons to take home with you here:
     1. Do not drive while talking on the phone! You really do need all your attention focused on the road ahead of you.
     2. Do not blindly follow the person in front of you, assuming they know what they’re doing. Sometimes, they don’t.

Thank goodness it all ended well enough, and I even got to eat lunch!