It Never Rains but It Pours

This really has to be one of the worst Januaries on record. Seriously.

On Tuesday afternoon, I drove up to Manchester to meet Jen et al. at David’s Bridal, with a stop in Middletown to have Judi sign my head teacher certification application. Well, seeing Judi and Kristin went just fine. She was happy to do it, and she told me that (ironically enough) April and Joe are looking into opening another Kiddie World in West Haven, of all places. Anyway. So I hop back on I-91. I get off at the Charter Oak Bridge to get onto I-84, and I’m driving along, completely unsuspecting of anything. I’m in the crazy section where 84 and 384 run parallel and there are 5 travel lanes, plus an HOV lane, when BAM! Some jackass hits me!  He clipped my left rear quarter-panel and went swerving wildly into the HOV lane.  He over corrects and goes spinning around. Meanwhile, I’m completely under control and slowing down because 1.) this guy is in front of me now and he looks like he’s going to go slamming into the median any second, and 2.) I anticipate pulling over and exchanging information. Boy was I fucking deluded.  He gets the car under control and goes flying off down the road. From behind me comes this dark SUV with lights flashing, going after the guy. I pull over, check the damage, and call Alan so he knows that I’m okay.  Since I’m not hurt and the car isn’t damaged to the point of undrivability (is that a word?), I head on down the road, thinking I’ll catch up with the car that hit me and the cop that chased him.  Unfortunately, as some of my readers know, 84 and 384 split. Since I couldn’t follow both, I stayed on 84, which was where I was headed anyway.  I guess I picked the wrong road, or I didn’t go far enough because I never did cross paths with them.  So I make my shaken way up to the store.

I didn’t call the cops until we were done trying on dresses. When I finally got through to the right Troop, they knew right away what I was talking about. They had a trooper meet me just off I-91 in Hartford to take my statement and information and photograph the damage. Lots of fun. They did eventually catch up to the guy. The driver of the car was not the owner, so the driver may not have been insured. The car, however, is insured. (In CT you can’t register a car without insurance and if your insurance lapses I think they can suspend your license until you’re covered again.) So I have to call both Progressive (my insurance) and Geico (the owner’s) to get this all straightened out. I’m not sure if I should call my company first or what. I’ve never had to do this before.

Anyway, the damage isn’t over a huge area. He took out my rear light and scraped up the bumper and such. He may also have knocked my wheels out of alignment a bit. There’s a slight wobbliness I noticed on the drive home. Not in the sense of my control over the car, but a little like dragging a grocery cart behind you so you’re not sure if it’s following in a stright line. Poor Ptolemy. 🙁

And on top of that, whatever I have has gotten worse. Well, I don’t actually know that. I took some Robitussin last night before bed, then woke up in the middle of the night coughing so hard I thought I’d rupture something important. So I took some more Robitussin and went back to bed. 20 minutes later I’m up again feeling like someone is squeezing some internal organ just below my sternum. A sure sign that my stomach is in revolt. Fortunately, once I got all the Robitussin back up, I felt much better. I took a very hot shower and went back to bed. I woke up drenched in sweat with my throat aching and my voice not much more than a croak. My throat has improved, fortunately. I had thought it was swollen, but it mostly just feels raw.  I had thought about going to the walk-in center down the road, but since my throat isn’t sore and my fever is down, it seems a bit pointless.  I may just spend the entire day in my jammies.

In the world of silver linings, Jen picked out her wedding dress and our bridesmaids dresses, so that’s good. Hers is a corset top with red ribbon gathered at the top and red embroidery and beading at the bottom of the corset and a lace-up back (red trim of course) with a full gathered skirt. Gorgeous. And since her skirt has pick-ups, she chose a matching dress for us. And, best of all, she’s decided that we can alternate colors. So some of us will have red gowns with chocolate brown sashes, and the others will have chocolate brown dresses with red sashes. And the brown and red look much better together in real life that they do online. And I get to wear red. Yay! My favorite color! LOL… Now I just need some reason to wear this dress again. It’s gorgeous.  I haven’t ordered it yet because I’m broke, but my mom said she would send me money for it, so yay! again.

I really hope that accident was the third thing. I mean, bad things happen in threes, right? So the major plumbing issue, the theft, and the hit and run. God I hope the universe decides I’m paid up for awhile.

~Liz