i can see into the future

I woke up Sunday with a feeling that it was not going to be a good day. I was anxious about two events I had planned for that day after religious school – a camp recruitment presentation and a trip to the bowling alley with 5th and 6th graders. I was a bit bitter that I was giving up most of my Sunday. It was snowing and the flakes were sticking, and I just wanted to stay in bed. I whined to J before I left that I didn’t want to go. My gut was telling me that something bad was going to happen.

I drove my Altima slowly up the street to intersection. As I made a right-hand turn, my car skid as it went over a patch of ice. (It had rained all day on Saturday, so there was ice under the snow.) I hate, hate, hate driving in the snow. I also hate driving in the pouring rain. I chose to drive down on a big 4-lane street instead of the side roads I normally take to Temple because I figured it would have been plowed or at least covered in salt. I must have been driving 20 mph, tapping my breaks lightly every once in a while so I wouldn’t lose control. I contemplated turning around, but I couldn’t miss the programs I was responsible for. I could feel my wheels sliding back and forth instead of moving forward, but I made it through two intersections fine. The third intersection, however, was at the end of a big hill (a hill I had completely forgot about), and as I was trying to slow down, my car started skidding to the left. As I tried to get control of it AND stop I was hit from behind by an SUV. My heart nearly broke out of my chest. The car kept hitting me and hitting me like we were in bumper cars all the way across the intersection. Trying to break at this point was futile. It actually made it worse.

We finally stopped moving when I purposefully steered up onto a sidewalk. Then I was hysterical. The driver of the other car walked over to my window, and upon seeing me with mascara running down my cheeks got worried that I was hurt. I wasn’t, thankfully, and neither was she. Our cars also showed no signs of major damage. Still, we pulled into the parking lot on the other side of the sidewalk to exchange information and wait for J to come to survey the scene. I called 911 because that’s what I thought you’re supposed to do if you get into an accident, and they told me that they weren’t taking any traffic accidents at that time; there were just too many around town. We actually saw 3 other cars mimic bumper cars while we waited.

This was my first car accident EVER. Thanks, Omaha, for your stupid winter weather and incompetency at clearing the roads.