Wednesday, August 27, 2008

I hate freeways

I'm avoiding doing my homework right now. I'm also avoiding parental duties. Richard has a tennis class every Wednesday night so I am in charge of the bedtime routine. Instead of rounding up the kids into the bathroom, I'm ignoring...I mean I'm letting them watch "Over the Hedge" in my bedroom right now. I wish that I could just throw then into bed with out a bath but Richard would give me a look like I'm the worst parent in the world. Never mind that he will buy them any thing that they want. Sorry, I'll stop complaining now.

I did have a somewhat exciting weekend, although not how I would have liked. See the following pictures.
Yes, that is a pipe sticking out of my bumper. A four foot long, three inch diameter, metal pipe; the kind that they use in portable scafolding. I was driving to a friend's house to spend a couple hours with him and his family enjoying their pool. His son and Nathan are the same age and we are trying to get them to be friends. About two miles from their house, a semi truck runs over this pipe in the middle of the freeway and it gets sent spinning towards us. I swerve to avoid it but don't get out of the way entirely. At least I was able to take it off the freeway with me so no one else got hit. When the AAA guy came to help me fix my tire (which I somehow busted during this whole experience), he and his trainee just stared at the pipe rather dumfounded. AAA guy did help me put it into perspective when he said that we were really lucky. He then changed our tire much more quickly and safely than I could have (we were still on the shoulder of the freeway), took the pipe out, and sent us on our way (I'm really glad that I have AAA, never mind that Richard works there). There seems to be minimal damage to the car. The bumber is being replaced and the body was dented a little but the repair shop will just pound it back out. In a week and a $500 deductible latter, everything will be back to normal. Otherwise we are all just fine. Joshua, who was asleep at the time of the accident, didn't even wake up. When he did wake up, he and Nathan thought it was a great adventure. They were a little disapointed that it was a van that came out to change our tire and not a big tow truck. We then went on to our friends' house and had a good time swimming and eating lunch.

6 comments:

Arnold said...

You are REALLY lucky or blest. Debris thrown from a freeway often has a way of going through windshields or doors where they have a nasty habit of slicing through people. To come off it with only minor bumper and tire damage - Whew!!

Carolyn Loveridge said...

It leaves me shaky just reading about it. I think I'd want to curl up into a little ball and go to sleep. I'm so glad you are all o.k.

Love you,
Mom

Natalie said...

I guess I'm glad that I waited a few days to write this blog so that I can look at it a little more objectively now. I was a bit shaken up that day and the next. Now I can say that we are all really ok and I do feel really blest.

Rebecca Kline said...

How scary!!! I'm so glad that it was your bumper and not a window. My dad ended up with a 2x4 from a truck through the passenger side of his window and out through the back. Bumpers are sooo much easier to replace than kids or mommies.

Carter said...

Maybe you should have just kept it on the car. You could start a whole new trend on the SoCal freeways, sort of a "Mad Max Lite" thing? At the very least people would give you more room on the road...

Unknown said...

So glad you are OK. Some day I'll tell you about my hoods flying up on me.