Another too exciting day, sigh

My friends seem to think I live a really exciting life. Maybe it's the stories I tell them (all true) or just that I seem to (they say) be always going somewhere or attending some interesting event. That might be partially true, as I cannot stand to do the same thing over and over and seek variety and new experiences. Thursday night I was planning to attend a play "Habitat" at the Friends meeting place. I was hoping to go with a friend (ha ha) or my Mom, if she was interested. We didn't go, however. Yesterday's exciting day had nothing to do with that!

It started with a court date for my son. It was called a "pre-trial" and he told me that it really did look like a lawyer show on TV. He had been picked up for expired tabs shortly after we moved here. During the stop, which was in our old state, he was unable to produce proof of insurance so a court date was set. This was one of those fill-the-room-with-people type of hearings. He brought an insurance form but the court didn't accept it and set a pre-trial for March 30th.

During that time he tried to get the driver's license changed to our new state, because we had only 30 days to do that and he was afraid if the court found out he still had only his old one, he'd be in trouble for that, too. After five trips to the Driver's License Dept he still didn't have a valid DL for our new state. I even went with him for the 4th trip, thinking somehow I could vouch for him that he lives with me, in the new state. That's allowed for registering for voting, so I (foolishly) thought it might work. Nope. My DL took less than five minutes to do that entire thing, including the photo and the laminated card!

Well, my son was really nervous about this new court thingy, because while he had proof of insurance, which is all they were asking for, he didn't have a DL from our new state yet. So he arrived early and had an opportunity to speak to the prosecutor. After a bit of small talk, she told him she'd ask to dismiss the case. So he went in the court feeling better, but hoping it would all work out well. It did, the judge briefly looked at his insurance form and dismissed it. My son went to pay his tabs and that was it! He called me at work to tell me the good news and he and several friends were going to a pizza place to celebrate, since he didn't have to work until much later.

I was diligently working on travel accounting and not doing too much reading and commenting on blogs(!) when I got another call from him. He seldom calls me at work, so twice in one day was noteworthy. "Mom, I got into an accident!" Before I could freak out too much he quickly added, "I'm fine. Everybody is fine. Well, except the car. I'm not sure about the car. Can you get off from work? It's OK if you can't, but can you?"

BZ was not in so I went to the second in command and got permission to leave early. I had parked my car a long way from the office so it seemed like forever before I finally got on the road and over the bridge.

I was coming down the main drag of our new city, where the stores like Target, K-Mart and War-Mart are located. It seemed like so much time had elapsed that I wasn't even sure they would still be there. But then I saw many flashing lights and a car sitting up on some huge landscaping rocks like it was on display. I really wish I had a picture of it, the scene was attracting a crowd and not just because of the flashing lights, but I was distracted at the time and didn't have a camera either, of course. There was a huge tow truck trying to figure out how to get the car off the rocks and down. I was thanking my lucky stars that it was the other car, not his car.

I parked and quickly ran to make sure the boys were OK. They were, which was the most important thing of course. But then I saw his car...that was the zippy little car that I'd owned before the jeep. Instead of trading it in, I'd kept it and given it to my son. It was the first car I bought off the showroom floor. I LOVED that car....

"Yeah, that car's toast" one of my son's friends said cheerfully and my son gave him a "shut up!" look. The accident happened across from a car dealership for the same brand of car. One salesperson came over to talk with us and gave us her card "In case we wanted to buy a new car." Which I thought was pretty funny and supplied the only humor in the whole thing. The wrecker came to take it away. He had to decide where to have them take it, as we don't know auto places in our new city, to have the insurance do an appraisal on it. He made many calls to insurance, to our agent, to claims, etc. I drove one of his friends back over the bridge to his work and then went home. My mother was not pleased to hear about all of this but did offer the use of her car so he could get to work.

So nobody was hurt. The driver of the other car was an 18-year old with a suspended license, no insurance, driving his mother's car and he was speeding. His mother and grandmother came right away and tried to get my son and friends to say that she was driving. My son and friends didn't tell the police about that, but they should have. Son got a citation too, for deviating from the lane, as he was changing lanes when the other car hit. I'm so relieved and thankful that nobody got hurt. But my car, my poor little car-ee as I used to call it. A moment of silence please, for my little car....

It's Friday, TGIF, TGIF! Have a good, quick Friday and a wonderful weekend! I'm riding in a patrol car on Saturday night! The landlord was going to (finally) come and fix my closet on Saturday, but I'm going to need a nap before being up all night with the police.