We've Been Run Over ... Again

Talk about wrong time, wrong place ... we have been run over twice in the last ninety days.  What are the odds?  Do we have a sign on our backs, which we cannot see, that says, "Go ahead, just run over us" ?  I'm beginning to wonder.

I used to work in an industry whose business it was to was to calculate the odds of certain things happening.  It was called, in the world of statistics, the "incidence of coincidence."

Seriously, that was what it was called.  Well, we have definitely gone beyond your ordinary standard deviation, as we have been rear ended twice in the past three months.  What are the chances?  Never mind, it happened.

The first time was in Boston, this past March, the night before we were to fly to Dublin, Ireland.  We had flown all day first from Sacramento to San Francisco, then to Boston.  We arrived late in the evening, and planned to rest overnight and then take a flight the next day for Dublin.

We were about a half mile from the airport in a hotel shuttle van, the driver was making the usual in-transit chit-chat with us and four other passengers, when we stopped at an odd three-way intersection.  We were idling for a couple of moments when suddenly WHAM!!  My head snapped back and David and I looked at each other wondering "what just happened?"

Soothing music was playing on the radio, but it wasn't enough to soothe my nerves, with my ears ringing and my brain trying to figure out what had occurred.

Finally, after a couple of nano-seconds it computed, "We've just been hit."  And by another shuttle bus, no less.  A professional driver had just hit another shuttle bus.  He was a chain-smoking, nervous, jumpy little guy, who looked as though he had been driving for about 48 straight hours.  Oh, boy.

As soon as we looked around at the other passengers and determined that no one seemed to be hurt, we started trying to figure out whose luggage was closest to the rear doors of the van.

We did, all six of us.  In which order had we entered and loaded, thus whose "stuff" was most likely messed up? Can you believe it?  Just moments before we were trying to figure out whether our necks were broken, and two seconds later we were trying to determine whether our hand lotion had exploded all over our best sweaters.  Talk about changing priorities.                                         
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Fast forward to today.  Some of you, who stop by regularly know we have just "re-done"  two upstairs rooms.  I had managed to eliminate enough books (gasp!  to know how tough this was for me to do, see  More Sorting ...More Subterfuge ) and thus I had an unneeded bookcase to donate to Goodwill.

The old bookcase, combined with some odd bags of clothing (the clothes were not odd, unless your tastes differed vastly from ours, but the size and shape of the bags were lumpy) meant we had a small pickup load ready to take to the Goodwill this afternoon.

Our hearts were in the right place, but our truck wasn't.  We made our drop off, and as we puttered across the parking lot toward the exit, WHAM!!  Really?  Again?  Twice in less than 90 days?  Are you kidding me?

The driver, a teen aged boy, jumped out apologizing, immediately admitting that he had not looked behind him when he backed out of his parking space.  He was young and in a hurry.

We are not young, and we were in no hurry ... but we really didn't want to be maimed this afternoon either.

Insurance information was exchanged, phone calls were made, while the sun blazed down upon us.  I went in to a nearby food place, bought some iced tea, and brought the young "perp" some ice water.  He seemed dazed that we were not yelling at him.

So now we are waiting on a call from the repairmen, the adjuster, and any other participants in this little driving-drama.  Phooey!

I had already been battling a flare-up of arthritis in my neck and shoulder.  Now I look like a human tilt-a-whirl with my head at an odd angle and my eyes rotating, because my head cannot do so at the moment.

What is it they say, "Life is what happens, while you were busy making other plans."

I'll tell you what.  I'm staying home tomorrow.  And maybe for several days after that.  I'm too old and stiff to keep getting run over on a semi-regular basis.  Maybe I'll just sit and admire the new drapes in the guest bedroom.  That's safe, isn't it?

Hope you are tucked in safe and sound.  We are not forgetting that it could have been worse.  We are thankful.  And who knows, tomorrow may be better.  It's a thought. ...Marsha