This was a post I made to my Mommy group June 8, 2004. I know a lot of you will remember it, but there may be a few of you that haven't been regaled with this particular tale yet. :) Just bear in mind that this all happened 2 years ago...I'm fine, Cam's fine, my van is still dilapidated, and no, the assmunch never did pay up. Enjoy the story!

I pull off the road, and in the matter of about 2 seconds I’ve taken a bodily inventory (nothing broken, bruised, smashed, or otherwise), a vehicular inventory (windshield intact, nothing smoking, engine still running) and picked up the phone and radioed TJ to have his Mom turn around and come back-they were about half a mile up the road. Conveniently, I was sitting half a block from Innerarity’s fire station, and TJ asked if I needed them to come patch me up-I told him the only medical need I had right then was some Valium-the adrenaline had hit full force by then and I couldn’t figure out if I was going to burst into tears, bust out laughing, throw up, or some freakish combination of the three. I got out and looked at the back end of the van-that’s where I heard the crunch. My back tire was obliterated; it was completely flat. The rim, however, was NOT flat-it was peeled back and thoroughly resembled a pouting child with his lip rolled out. TJ called the FHP, and we turned around in time to see 8-yes, EIGHT, grown men heaving and rolling this tree trunk out of the road into the brush about a block and a half from where I ended up.

I walked back to look at it in a STATIONARY position (it looked MUCH bigger in mid-air, y’all, I swear) and found my hubcap about half a block along the way. Well, I found what was LEFT of my hubcap about half a block away. I realized what was pinched in the peeled back portions of my rim-bits of hubcap. I’m saving this, and am seriously thinking about framing it. It’s ROUGH, y’all. It looked how *I* felt. By this time the guy that was driving the truck came jogging around the corner-they didn’t stop till about 4 blocks down the road (TJ and I agree that that just happened to be the earliest they could STOP, they were going that goddamn fast). They all thought from the SOUND of the impact that it had gone thru the windshield.

Now…let me just mention right here that the ORIGINAL plan at my MIL’s house was for Cam to ride in the van with me, but the little Sybil changed personalities and decided as we were walking out the door that he wanted to ride with his Grandma. All I can say about that is THANK GOD!! I’m willing to bet my emotional progression would have not been, “shock…fear…nervous energy.” Had Cam been in the van it would have been more like, “shock…EXTREME FURY…body cavity search” as I’d have MURDERED the asshole driving the van before he could ask if we were all right and been carted off to jail immediately.

ANYWAY, he asks how we are, and if anyone is hurt, and is very apologetic and sincere even…which made it VERY hard to hate him as much as I wanted to, the rat bastard. He changed my tire, and I backed off the main road-people drive that road like fucking maniacs, might I add…those of you that have been down there know which road I’m talking about-and we waited for an hour a 15 minutes for the FHP. That’s what happens when you have an accident with no injuries in the boonies…that sure taught ME a lesson-next time we’ll have to bleed a LITTLE to speed up the process.

Barb, god bless her, sees how freaked out I am, and asks if she could go get me a beer or a wine cooler….HA! Yeah, lemme guzzle that down before the cops get there… She brought me a diet coke instead, as well as her camera. She got pics of the amazing flying log, and my van, my tire, and my hubcap. And then we waited. In the meantime my loving, charming husband and MIL are regaling the poor guy (he went from rat bastard to poor guy that fast) with stories of their experiences with the 2 FHPs that work the Key and the Point-Barb knows them both very well, and TJ knows them both through work. He was squirming. It probably didn’t help that I ended up having to go over to the station to pee-nervous energy + 2 diet cokes = serious need to pee. I walked in and 2 of the guys recognized me & asked what was going on. I started babbling (I really haven’t stopped, to be honest), and said that we were waiting across the street for the FHP, that some asshole in a really big truck threw a tree at me and I barely missed it and REALLY needed to use their bathroom-oh, and TJ was over there if they wanted to talk to him. I went in to pee, and when I came out the station was EMPTY. The phone was ringing off the hook, and the guys were nowhere to be seen. I found them across the street, admiring the trees skid marks along the road, and my pouty tire.

The officer finally shows up, and TJ calls him by name, shaking his hand…much to the other guy’s chagrin. (heh) We drove over to where the big ass truck finally managed to stop, and sat in the heat another 20 minutes while the FHP (and his rookie-don’t forget the rookie…) did paperwork…in his AIR-CONDITIONED CAR...the rookie gets out to give me the paperwork, and actually has the balls to go, “Shew! My glasses are all fogged up! We have the AC cranked in there!” …fucker… At that point I disliked HIM more than the dude that threw the tree at me. Anyway. The tree guy didn’t “have an insurance card on him” at the time, but he assured the cop that he was insured. Keep your fingers crossed…lol.

The end result: the tree-thrower was issued two tickets; one for failure to secure the load properly, and the other for failure to provide proof of insurance. I suppose the “flinging 450 lb. tree trunks” law isn’t on the books yet… The officer is supposed to get back to us when (if?) he provides them with the proper information. So…I’d like to thank whoever was riding in my passenger seat today-be it my guardian angel, protective spirits, or the Lord and Lady themselves…I have a fucked up tire, busted hubcap, and probably some axle damage, and wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was damage to the frame…but the GOOD part of the story, boys and girls, is that *I* was not damaged. I didn’t even spill my soda!!