There's a first time for everything

I had never been involved in a car wreck that had to involve the police before.

That is... not before Monday night.

My little man and I were making a Target run while Dad and sister were at their BSF class on Monday evening. We were on our way home at about 8 pm and honestly, everything happened so fast that I'm not entirely sure of what happened at all.

All I know is that all of the sudden, the car in front of me was stopped and I needed to stop as well. And, being just a two lane narrow little road with no shoulder, there was no swerving. The only option was to get on the brakes fast and hard.

Thankfully, my man had just purchased new tires for my car last week. Because they gripped the slightly wet and slick road and my brakes worked great (even though they also need to be replaced). I stopped in time.

However the car behind me did not.

We felt a bump, but it did not feel bad at all. I pulled on up and turned on to the side street just to get out of the way. I didn't realize that it didn't much matter.

I turned and checked on the little man and he was just fine and so was I. I got out and saw what hit me. That car was not just fine.

The people that live in the house on the corner came out because they heard the crash. I asked them to check on the other driver because I couldn't leave my son. Within a minute or so, an SUV pulled up behind me on the side street. It took a minute for me to understand who it was, but it was the person that had been driving the car that hit me. Her husband had been following her and she got in his car and pulled up behind me.

I had texted Mike immediately when it happened but had yet to hear back from him. So I texted him again. Then, when the woman's husband was cursing and dropping the f-bomb all over the place, I texted him again. Then I called him. And texted... and called... you get the idea.

My text history looks something like this:

"Wreck"

"Are you there? We just got rear ended."

"This guy is cursing."

"Can you come?!?!?"

"A little help?"

"HELLOOOOOO!?!?!?"

Just to be clear, the guy was not cursing at me. He was just mad and cursing at the situation as he called the police and the wrecker and looked at their car that was spewing steam everywhere. But still. It made me nervous to be by myself. I'm sure you understand.

Finally the police showed up and I felt much better. At first it was just one squad car and he needed to direct traffic because her car was not moving without a wrecker. Finally another officer showed up which allowed the other one to come over and begin writing the report as we continued to wait for the tow truck. Which, by the way, was totally exciting to my little man.

The guy had calmed down quite a bit and we began looking over my car. By just looking at it, it was not immediately obvious that I had been in a wreck. The only visible damage was that the bumper (a big black piece of plastic) was cracked. From the looks of her car, which had gone up underneath mine, my car should have looked much worse.

And of course, since I did have a 4 year old little boy with me, he realized all of the sudden, in the middle of talking with the police, that he needed to go to the bathroom, "REALLY BAD!" So, we went and knocked on the door of the corner house where the people had come from to check on things when it all first happened. Those sweet people let us come in and use their bathroom.

I love Texas hospitality.

Finally, as we were finishing up about an hour later, Mike called and was on his way from Bible study. Apparently the vibrate feature of his phone is not working and he never knew I was trying to get in touch with him. As I was on the phone with him I realized that our two police cars had turned into about five. Apparently not much was going on in our city that night.

He arrived and shortly thereafter we realized that this other couple's night was just getting worse.

The wife, who was driving the car that hit us, had outstanding warrants for unpaid tickets and was all of the sudden being hand-cuffed and seated in the squad car.

Ouch.

We were just about to get ready to leave when the tow truck finally arrived so we had to stay and watch that. It was what Nathan had been looking forward to and asking about constantly this whole time. We couldn't miss it.


We were really hoping that, for the other couple's sake, the damage was little enough that we could avoid messing with insurance. However, upon further inspection in the daylight today, Mike discovered enough damage that we're going to have to take it somewhere. In fact, he was up under the car looking around for a while when he finally realized that my spare tire was gone. Completely missing.

We still have no idea where it ended up.

So I experienced several firsts on Monday night. I was in a wreck with one of my children in the car. I was in a wreck that was bad enough to warrant police involvement. I was in a wreck that was bad enough that one of the cars was not leaving the scene under its own power. And I had someone cuffed and arrested right in front of me.

You would think that with a father that worked in law enforcement all of his career that I would have experienced that last one before. But, no.

And there definitely is a first time for everything.