My Birthday (Mis)Adventure

Yes, today is my birthday, and this morning I thought I'd put up a little self-serving birthday post, a blatant and even slightly pathetic invitation for my blogger friends to post a Happy Birthday message for me. (And you can do that on your birthday, too, if you have a blog!)

But I never had a chance to write that post -- and instead I now have to post about how we got rear-ended by a hit-and-run driver on the way to my aunt's house for lunch.

We were stopped at a light. The kids and I were having a nice little chat, when suddenly there was this horrible jarring impact and awful noise.

For the first moment you only experience it, you can't comprehend it, and then the realization, "We just got hit by a car!" Immediately after my head bounced back against the head rest, I whipped around to see if the kids were all OK. They were, thank God, but they instantly burst into tears from the shock of it.

While looking back, I saw the guy in the big grey van behind us. I turned forward again and realized the light was green so I prepared to pull over. However, the guy who hit us didn't pull over, but instead sped up the on-ramp to the expressway at that intersection.

"It's a hit and run!" I said in disbelief, and proceeded to up the ramp myself, honking like mad, but the guy only went faster.

My 14-yo Nancy-Drew-fan daughter instantly went into detective mode and began repeating the guy's license plate aloud.

Obviously I wasn't about to start a high-speed chase, so I pulled over, checked again that the kids were OK, and called 911 to report it.

Next we had a trip to the local police station. My kids, who have never been inside a station before and who I hope never are again, were pretty wide-eyed during the 45 minutes we were there reporting the incident (especially when they heard a call for a "prisoner count" over the PA system.) The officer very courteously took all our information.

Now here's the amazing part: At the time, I thought for sure the back end of the van would be completely smashed up. The impact was enough to send cups flying out of cupholders, and toss little items out of a dashboard "cubby" onto the floor. Besides, we'd all gotten a fairly decent jolt forward and back. But the only damage that the officer and I noticed was that the bumper had a few scratches.

Or so I thought, until I got home and discovered that the right rear quarter panel was ajar and pushed forward slightly. Still, nothing major. I guess they really do design bumpers better these days; it seemed to absorb most of the impact without tranferring it to the rest of the car body.

And so,thank goodness, this ended up being nothing more than a bad fender-bender. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is really nothing at all.

But still, I sure could use a drink. Guess I picked the wrong thing to give up for Lent....