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It's Mondaying
Oct. 20th, 2008 08:56 pmI was all set to have this be a good week. It's a short week for me; I've got a couple days off for personal time, and the days that I am working I'm going to be at clinics I know and like. I've got a surprising lack of extra rehearsals to devour my evenings, leaving me free to practice on my own time and at my own pace. I'm hopefully going to donate blood in a few days. I've got a friend from out of town coming to visit.
Unfortunately, the world seems to be doing everything it can to rain on my parade as hard as possible. I tried to shrug the little things off - a problem with framing a piece of stitchery that delayed pickup and made me go out of my way and threw off my timing for the day; one car out of gas and the other flashing the 'check engine' light; forgetting to wash my water bottle before leaving for work.... those are all minor nuisances. I managed to leave the house only a minute or so behind schedule, and still in a more or less positive frame of mind.
So, of course, I got rearended less than a mile from my house.
On the busiest road around. While stopped at a traffic light. Not just stopped as in 'pulled up to a halt a moment ago,' either - I had been at a full stop for most of a minute, and the girl who hit me slammed in hard enough to throw me forward until my head jerked and my teeth slammed together.
Now, I don't have a lot of experience with car accidents, and I don't really know what the appropriate way to deal with them is. My car was, blessedly, more or less unscathed, at least to the naked eye - there were a couple of holes punched in the bumper where the screws from her license plate holder met it, but that was all. However... I've had friends whose cars looked fine, but turned out to be pretty messed up internally. And my head was killing me. And it's always best to go through proper channels, right? So I figured the best thing to do was report the accident. So I told the other driver, who had pulled over, that I was doing just that.
She promptly informed me that she didn't speak English, and that she needed me to talk to her friend. She handed me her cell phone, and a strange man promptly started ripping me a new orifice, insisting that the other driver had told him I was fine and that my car was completely undamaged and that she had barely nudged me and that I was a horrible, abusive, bad, lying liar who was trying to cheat and get her in trouble and all but threatening me if I reported the accident.
Unfortunately for her, I had already called and reported it.
Unfortunately for me, the officer who showed up was an utter jerk. He showed up after about ten minutes, and before he was fully out of his car he was already blustering, stomping, and complaining. Apparently I was wasting his valuable time by reporting an accident that didn't require anyone to be towed. He glanced at my car from about 20 feet away, asserted that it was fine, and asked what the heck was wrong with me. When I said that I had bumped my head pretty hard, he responded that unless I wanted him to call me an ambulance, he was wasting his time there. He then proceeded to mock my anxiety, tell me off in half a dozen colorful ways, and demand my license and registration, in a tone that implied I probably didn't actually have either.
I wound up late for work, my precious baby car has holes in her bumper, my head ached all day, and my faith in the MyTown Police has bottomed out for good. Good mood and determination shattered, in less than twenty minutes.
Also? I can't believe what happened at the end of last week's episode of Heroes, my kitchen thermometer died halfway through making the pork tenderloin for tonight's dinner, and silk embroidery thread I ordered over a week ago still isn't here yet, leaving me at an utter stalemate on my current project.
Grump.
Unfortunately, the world seems to be doing everything it can to rain on my parade as hard as possible. I tried to shrug the little things off - a problem with framing a piece of stitchery that delayed pickup and made me go out of my way and threw off my timing for the day; one car out of gas and the other flashing the 'check engine' light; forgetting to wash my water bottle before leaving for work.... those are all minor nuisances. I managed to leave the house only a minute or so behind schedule, and still in a more or less positive frame of mind.
So, of course, I got rearended less than a mile from my house.
On the busiest road around. While stopped at a traffic light. Not just stopped as in 'pulled up to a halt a moment ago,' either - I had been at a full stop for most of a minute, and the girl who hit me slammed in hard enough to throw me forward until my head jerked and my teeth slammed together.
Now, I don't have a lot of experience with car accidents, and I don't really know what the appropriate way to deal with them is. My car was, blessedly, more or less unscathed, at least to the naked eye - there were a couple of holes punched in the bumper where the screws from her license plate holder met it, but that was all. However... I've had friends whose cars looked fine, but turned out to be pretty messed up internally. And my head was killing me. And it's always best to go through proper channels, right? So I figured the best thing to do was report the accident. So I told the other driver, who had pulled over, that I was doing just that.
She promptly informed me that she didn't speak English, and that she needed me to talk to her friend. She handed me her cell phone, and a strange man promptly started ripping me a new orifice, insisting that the other driver had told him I was fine and that my car was completely undamaged and that she had barely nudged me and that I was a horrible, abusive, bad, lying liar who was trying to cheat and get her in trouble and all but threatening me if I reported the accident.
Unfortunately for her, I had already called and reported it.
Unfortunately for me, the officer who showed up was an utter jerk. He showed up after about ten minutes, and before he was fully out of his car he was already blustering, stomping, and complaining. Apparently I was wasting his valuable time by reporting an accident that didn't require anyone to be towed. He glanced at my car from about 20 feet away, asserted that it was fine, and asked what the heck was wrong with me. When I said that I had bumped my head pretty hard, he responded that unless I wanted him to call me an ambulance, he was wasting his time there. He then proceeded to mock my anxiety, tell me off in half a dozen colorful ways, and demand my license and registration, in a tone that implied I probably didn't actually have either.
I wound up late for work, my precious baby car has holes in her bumper, my head ached all day, and my faith in the MyTown Police has bottomed out for good. Good mood and determination shattered, in less than twenty minutes.
Also? I can't believe what happened at the end of last week's episode of Heroes, my kitchen thermometer died halfway through making the pork tenderloin for tonight's dinner, and silk embroidery thread I ordered over a week ago still isn't here yet, leaving me at an utter stalemate on my current project.
Grump.
