"Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny." -- unknown

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results - Albert Einstein

connecticut sucks
May 27, 2005 - 5:26 pm

earlier today, i went to kohls and bought three shirts -- one of one type and two of another. upon returning home and trying them on... the two of one type didn't fit right and one of one type fit nicely. so i decided tomorrow i'd return the two and two of the other.

time passes.

i decide, well i need to get my front license plate on.. and the stuff i bought at walmart wouldn't do the trick.. and the saturn place is right down the street from kohls.. so why not do both?

bad choice.

but first, the good news. kohls lowered the price on type of shirt i liked.. and the guy gave me the one i purchased earlier a refund/reduction to the new lower price. i got two more of that type.. and stopped by the clearance area and found two dress shirts i liked for 80% off.. meaning two 40 dollar shirts (80 bucks) for about 8 bucks each (16 bucks). i know, that's a lot of deer.

so that's the good part of the day. oh and the saturn place only charged me for the bracket, not labor to put it on.

that's the end of the good news.

on my way to both of those stops... i was a traffic accident. obvisouly, i'm fine.. since i went on to kohls and saturn.

what happened was this (more or less):

cars in front of me stopped.. someone was turning left or right.. i'm not sure. as a habit i looked in the rearview mirror and saw a white car coming much to fast. i had time to think, he's going to hit me and honked the horn. why the horn? i've no idea.

i'm on the rightish side of the lane, so i turn my wheels some and try to move over.

our cars hit.

the white car veers off to the left, across traffic and to the other shoulder.

i hear two distinct, but very close "booms".

i shaken.

i look in the rear view, to see how badly my trunk is sticking up.. 'cause surely from the "booms" my rear end is a mess.

i see clearly out the back. i see a dark car.. with its hood mushed. the front end totalled.

i look across the street. there's a guy in a bmw calling the police and whatnot.. so i think that's taken care of. i've never been in an accident, but i know i need my insurance card. i get it from the glove box.

it occurs to me that nothing hurts.. well my neck does a bit. but no injury to me.

i get out of the car.

a guy from the dark car is coming towards me. we exchange "are you oks?" we are. i put the insurance card in my pocket -- clearly, i don't need this yet.

he recalls his mom was driving the dark car. he goes to tend to her.

the white car is now in a parking lot across the street. i've no idea who's in it.

various people ask, as they drive by, are we ok? i say i'm fine.

i look over my car, a white mark on the bumper. no damage what so ever. i look at the fucked up dark car.. and think, how'd this happen? the white car must be fucked up.

a clearer picture of what happened:

i stop. white car doesn't, clips my bumper.. just marks for each of us. white car hits her brakes (oh yes, the white car turned out to be driven by a little old lady, very nice... and shaken up, but unhurt). the dark car hits the white car. the dark car's front is smushed and the white car as some more scrapes and whatnot on the rear bumper.

i stopped. white hit me and tried to stop. dark hit white and white goes across the street.

i'm fine. lady in white is fine. guy in dark is fine. lady in dark hurt her wrist. later i see a spider mark on the windshield and know she hit her head. she feels dizzy and a tad sick. she can move her fingers and what not.. even lights her own cigerette.

we get ice from a gas station across the street.

someone calls to follow-up on just where the police/ambulance is. the caller is told "it's a busy day."

in total, thirty-three minutes passed before i heard sirens. a fire truck and ambulance arrive at the same time from different directions.

i confirm i'm ok and am told i need to sign a waiver that i don't want to go to the hospital.

i'm never given any waiver to sign and forget about it until now.

i'm of the opinion dark lady should go - wrist and head.. but she declines saying she hates hospitals. i guess she likes concussions and pain. to each their own.

white lady declines to go.

policeman shows up. we go through all the info.. telling of stories and what not. i'm oddly calm through all this. i know i didn't do anything to cause this. a flash of paranoia creeps in, what if the white lady makes something up? i relax, i have the phone number of the guy in the bmw, he left.. but gave it to me if it was needed. he saw it all happened and even heard me blow my horn.

i get assigned "car 3". at first this worries me. white car is car 2 and dark car is car 1. the officer explains.. the highest number is the car at the "front" of the accident -- and in this case one with no fault in the accident. car 2 hits car 3. car 1 hits car 2.

car 1 pays for car 2. car 2 pays for front damage to car 2. car 3 pays for nothing.

he looks at me to confirm, will car 3 be filing any claims? i say no. dearly hoping against hope that geico will never hear of this.

i get some paper with the case number on it. i can access the report in a few days. i probably will.

i dearly, dearly hope that car 2 doesn't file any claims regarding the front. i want nothing to do with this. i don't want to verify she hit me or anything. she only has a scratch. if i was her, i'd just go with car 1 paying for her damage in the rear, which was a tad more than the front.

car 1 is fucked. totalled.. and paying for another car.

i've never been in an accident before. i'm very glad no one was really hurt.. esp since it took over half an hour for anyone to arrive -- though to nurses did stop by.

i no longer think my habit of looking in the rear view is silly. in fact, i think it saved my car.. since i knew i was going to get hit and was able to move however little to the side.

car 2 is fucking lucky as hell no one was coming in the other lane or they'd have hit head-on and i don't think little old lady would have fared too well.

both car 1 and car 2 got verbals warnings about following too close, no tickets issued.

car 3 was only too fucking happy to drive to saturn.. and get his front license plate put on. they could have charged me 100 bucks and i probably wouldn't have cared.

car accidents help put things in prespective.

i wonder how freaked i'd have been if i'd have been at fault?

if someone had gotten really hurt?

i think next time i go to walmart, i just might get a first aid kit.

i happy my mind went through what i had.. a blanket.. a towel and how to use them stop bleeding and whatnot. my first inclination was to call 911 -- the bmw guy did that. i thought to get the dark lady the ice. i thought as she was dizzy, she needs to sit, or better still lay down in the shade. i pointed out the spidermarks to a friend of the dark lady that showed up. we discussed concussions. he seemed worried, but didn't talk her into going to the hospital - i can't help that.

i'm amazed how calm the white lady was, but then i guess she learned the dark lady would by paying for things.. and that i didn't want to file a claim.

dark lady and son (the guy) were just concerned about her wrist. i don't think it really dawned on them they were the ones to be ultimatly responsible for the accident.. and that their car was done. perhaps they were just happy not to be really hurt -- provided the dark lady is just dazed and not more.

i'm rambling now.

i think i'm going to go fix a nice stiff drink and sit on my balcony and listen to my white noise machine -- hopefully, no sirens.

all in all.. so far, connecticut has sucked.