You Will Not Believe This

So let me tell you about my day yesterday.

I had been waiting for Tuesday for a while now. There was going to be a big curriculum sale at the kids new school. Lots of items red tagged, 10-25% off of all purchases, and free shipping on all things ordered. That is a huge savings considering we have two kids and want to buy everything for the next school year. Plus, Lenny was going to be home, I didn't have to drag the kids with me, and I would have several hours of alone time to just peruse and select - all with a fresh Starbucks in hand.

Lenny calls me after 9am yesterday telling me that he got a very late shift release and that he was still in Corona. And, he still needed to take all of his gear back to his normal station. Arrrrghhhh. Ok, late start, no problem. An hour later he calls me and tells me he is going to AAA to fix a mixup that they made on our auto insurance. He should be home in plenty of time. Aaarrrrghhh again. I just want him home so I could escape for a while. Haven't done that for a few weeks. I was itching to leave.

11:30 and he is still not home. Jacob calls him to find out that he is on his way and should be here in about 5 minutes. Ok. He pulls up in front of the house looking happy to see us but with an underlying face of dismay. Hmmmm?? Wonder what's up with him. He whispers in my ear that in the parking lot after he left AAA, he got into a fender bender. The driver's side of his little red truck (the one that he LOVES and adores, the one that he cherried out several years ago, the one that belonged to his father that we got on the day he died) door is smashed in.

Here is what I do. Giggle. Yep that's right. I giggle. Not hysterically or disrespectfully, but giggle and a little smirk, nonetheless. Now it is smashed, but it isn't horrible. It will need repair work and it will probably be a headache, but ok, it can be done. So I am just not sympathizing with him. Mostly because I just want to get out of the house and be by myself for a while.

Oh yeah, the other thing that I did when I saw it was ....ok, brace yourself because this is bad. I said, "well thankfully it wasn't in my beautiful new van." Really, I said that . Maybe on the outside it doesn't sound too bad but on the inside I was all about the attitude that he better thank his lucky stars that it was his truck and not my van because boy he would be in more trouble if he drove the Black Pearl home with a smashed in door.

So I go off on my self-serving, self righteous way to buy homeschooling material for our kids because we want to be great and Godly examples to them. Yeah, right.

I go spend a few hours and had a very nice afternoon. I call Lenny when I get on the freeway to tell him that I am on my way home. Traffic slows, I slow too, hating traffic. Then according to Lenny this is what he hears from me on the phone :

"please don't hit me, please don't hit me, good, he didn't hit me..... BAM. Lenny, I just got hit, I will call you back."

I slowed, the guy behind me slowed, but the guy behind him slammed right into him, sending him right into me. Aaarrrghhhhh.

I call CHiPs and ask them to please send Ponch and Jon to the freeway because someone hit my new van. Weird thing was, the dispatcher kept asking if anyone was hurt. "No. Nobody is hurt. But MY NEW VAN IS." She didn't seem to get my urgency.

We get over to the side, assess the damage and then I remember how incredibly smirky I was this morning. I said a very sincere prayer of thanks for my safety and asked God to forgive me for being such a butt to my husband.

The guy behind me comes over ranting about the guy that hit him. He doesn't have ID, no insurance and the car is registered to someone other than him. "Call INS" he says to Ponch. Jon tries to tell him that INS will not come to pick up one guy. The guy is sitting over on the side of the freeway knowing that he is busted and this overweight middleaged bozo is screaming at him for being illegal and wasting our tax dollars. It was quite a scene.

Then he tells me that I have minimal damage. Ok, maybe I do, but "this is a new car and I have never bought one from a dealer, never financed a car, and it is a big deal for me. And you were following too close." And, I told Ponch to put in the report that I gave up a trip to Hawaii for a new car. Jon said, "you should have taken Hawaii."

So the damage is this. Most cosmetic. And to be honest, you probably wouldn't even notice it if I hadn't said anything. But, mechanically, the rear hatch won't latch properly, making locking the vehicle impossible. And, since I have recently had a vehicle stolen, I would really like to lock my car.

Ok, so wadda ya think about my day? Snotty? Yes, I was. But I chalk it up to just another day in the life of the Gisberts. And, believe me, as the events unfolded, I kept thinking "this is gonna be a great blog post."