Picking Flowers from Rubble

I honestly don’t know what made me think of this. Perhaps it’s a ‘count my blessings’ exercise or, as I prefer to say, flower collecting in rubble.

In any case, I was pulling out of the driveway of my office yesterday afternoon. I’m careful because we’re in a mixed residential / industrial area. There are kids, it’s summer, and I don’t want to run any ankle biters over. Nor do I want to get plastered like a bug on the front of a semi. So I’m careful.

Pulling out between our building and the one next door, what happens? Yep. As if by magic, a pair of young, around six or seven-year old, ankle-biters appear right by the front fender of my car. They’re on their skateboards so I don’t know if they were merrily whizzing along and I nearly slobberknocked them, or if they had paused to get a cold drink from the coffee shop that’s right there, by the driveway. No matter. All I could think was ‘Where did they come from!?’ Fortunately, I did not hit them, they did not hit me, no one got hurt, but it scared me.

Whew! I backed up to let them pass, checked again – left, right, left – as the protocol in the States requires. It’s clear so I pull out and drive down to the plant to deliver what I need to deliver.

I finish up down there, get back in the car to reverse my process and… ‘Where the Hell did that come from!??’ It’s a UPS truck that looks HUGE as it just about slams into me.

There are bushes along the property line between our property and the property next door. No fence, but the bushes are tall and full – you cannot see down the street, and no one coming down the street can see you, until you stick your nose out. He didn’t see me. He’s there for our daily pick-up. He usually drives like a bat out of Hell and today was no different. Fortunately, I was going slowly, laughing to myself that I had to be careful not to run over any ankle-biters when he just about plows into me.

Again – no paint was traded, but it did scare me. What is up with that? Two near misses in less than five minutes? Geez! What does this bode for the drive home?

I already had this done to me:

Compare pictures two and three, those are the most telling. Three is the passenger side, rumpled but the trunk (boot, in case you're British) is still discernible. Two - well, the entire back end of the car from the back bumper to the back of the tire is gone. Smashed in so it's not recognizable - and that is the driver's side. For a reality check, you can get an idea of the length of metal that's missing if you compare the open trunk lid to the frame. About 18-inches or so, give or take a couple of inches.

That was done to me on the freeway in 2013, the end of a great four day period.

On Friday afternoon, I found something that was supposed to be in my boss’s In-box. I wasn’t supposed to see it, but it was in his Out box by mistake. After I distributed the stuff, I got some of it back. When I looked through it, to determine who should get it, I was shocked to see that it was a draft letter notifying me of my termination. Surprise!

My boss was out of town that week, so I couldn’t go talk to him about it. I got to fret all afternoon, and then all weekend. I was still fretting Monday morning and I did talk to him.

There was nothing to be done about it. It wasn’t me or my performance. The company is a government contractor and because of Sequestration they were terminating a number of people. Oh joy! Shared pain makes it so much easier to bear, doesn’t it?

So I get through the day and am on my way home. It's a three lane freeway - two through lanes and one carpool lane along the center divide. Because of the number of cars getting on and off, I'm hanging out in the center lane, as I usually do.

Traffic is heavier than usual so I’m leaving room between me and the car in front when the guy ahead of me slams on his brakes so hard his back end lifts up.

For me, at forty-five miles an hour, it’s either slam on my brakes and risk having the guy behind me, who’s following too close, ram me. At which I would probably run right under the van that has its butt up in the air. Or, I can pull into the HOV lane – which I always pay attention to ‘in case’. I pick the HOV lane and get safely over.

Traffic that was stopped starts to move. I start to pull back into the center lane when KA-BAM!! It’s like the End of the World I tell ya! The End of the World!

I left skid marks about thirty-feet long. I’m disoriented, feeling like part of me is over there and some of me is over there. Rather like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz after the flying monkeys get done with him.

Long story short, I get hauled off to the hospital in an ambulance, back board, neck brace and the whole nine-yards.

So there’s a pile of rubble for you. I had just learned a couple of days before that I’m going to lose my job. I talked to my boss who basically shrugged and said ‘sorry’. My car has been totaled and I am on my way to the hospital with God only knows what injuries.

Yeah. So cars and accidents and nearly hitting and nearly being hit kind of wind me up a bit.

The good news that came out of that period is that I got a sanity check pretty soon after the accident.

At the hospital they did an MRI and x-rays - nothing broken, nothing injured, just take it easy for a few days. Here are some pain pills, if you need them.

I got back to work the next morning, despite everything, and got a heroes welcome. Sort of. Unfortunately, ironically, the first person who saw me was the woman who drafted my termination letter.

"What are you doing here?" She asked in obvious surprise.

Looked her square in the eye and quietly said, "I still work here, right?"

Yeah - I'm a bitch. Or I can be. And it didn't feel very good, not as good as it should have because I knew it wasn't her choice, either.

Anyway, the sanity check.

My husband and the cops hadn’t gotten all my stuff out of the car, so I had to go to the wrecking yard to get what was left. I felt work early on Wednesday afternoon and when I got there the gal behind the counter took me out into the yard to show me where the car was.

She took one look at the wreck, looked at me and then back at the car. “You walked away from that!?”

Yes I did, so given her reaction, I guess it could have been a lot worse. It would have been better had I not gone through that, but having done so, I know it could have been a lot worse.

Like today, a chance for flower counting.

I did not squish kids on my windshield nor did I get squished on a truck’s front end. Life is pretty darned good when I look at it like that. So, yeah. That's the start of a bouquet right there.

Have a safe, accident-free and lovely day!

Best~

Philippa

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