The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has run a new set of bumper tests. Don't get into a slow-speed accident in a newish car, by the way.

The whole thing reminds me of the Datsun Sentra I had years ago.

I was once rear-ended by some very nice people who were very apologetic about the whole mess.

I didn't tell them that my first reaction upon seeing my rear bumper was "Hey, it's straight again."

Yeah, the first time it was hit, neither driver stopped. That was one nasty thunderstorm.

Not long after I got the bumper fixed (which cost a lot more than I expected - but insurance paid for it) my mom totaled the car. She was driving it that day, for reasons I have forgotten, and the electrical system completely died when she stopped to check the mail. She thought she could just push it to a parking space and figure out what to do with it later, but there was more of a slope than she realized and the car hit a tree in our front yard after jumping the curb.

Oops.

The weirdness started before I even got to the bookstore.

I was first in line to make a left turn to the exit to the road that my store is on when I heard someone leaning on the horn behind me. That was my first warning that I was about to face one of the most amazingly bad drivers I have ever encountered. Said driver appeared right in front of me, as if she wanted to cut me off instead of wait on line to turn. I felt somewhat better when she waved at me to go ahead of her when there was a break in traffic. I'm sure the folks behind me were irritated when she pulled out before them, but I was fairly sure she was no longer my problem.

Ha!

When we pulled onto the main road, she passed me, then pulled in front of me just as we got to the big intersection tight next to the shopping center. Then she looked up and realized that the traffic light was yellow and stopped. Right in the middle of the intersection. Finding herself in that difficult predicament, she chose the one thing she could do to make the situation worse. She put her car in reverse. That is the second time I have seen the vehicle ahead of me go into reverse on that road, and the last time my car was totaled. She then heard what was at least the second car horn of her drive that afternoon, and this time I was the one honking at her.

To my great relief, she stopped before hitting me, and she was out of the intersection enough to avoid blocking traffic. To my great apprehension, she had an employee parking sticker for the shopping center. It turns out she works for another store, so I avoided a face-to-face confrontation.

The store was crazy when I got there, making me briefly wonder if I had managed to sleep through Thanksgiving. It was reassuring when things quieted down as soon as it got dark outside. Dark and cold and rain is a combination that tends to keep people home. After that, we had to deal with the endless phone calls from people wondering if we were closed Thanksgiving Day. When I told one person we were going to be closed, she asked me "All day?!" That would be yes. All day. Feel free to come and bang on the door if it makes you happier, but rest assured that the place will be deserted.

The customers of the day were a couple in their fifties. They wanted to know the phone number for WINA. It is not often that people will come into the store for a radio station's phone number, but OK. What got me was the reasoning. Their power had gone out and Dominion Power wouldn't tell them how long their house would be dark and they thought the employees of WINA would be able to tell them how long of a wait it would be. Huh?

I survived many repetitions of "Have a good Thanksgiving" with only a few tears. Hopefully tomorrow will be as easily dealt with. It's hard to believe I have now lived without my sister for a full year. It still doesn't feel real to me.

All of you reading, have a blessed Thanksgiving. For those of you who will spend the day remembering Cat, know that you will not be alone.

I was reminded of these by princesskiya.

When I was a kid, my parents drove a manual transmission, specifically a Ford Fairmont from the days when American cars were the best in the world. This was also several years before my parents split up.

One cold winter morning, Mom lost the ring she was going to wear that day - one moment it was on her dresser and the next moment it had vanished. It was a nice ruby ring, and she really wanted to find it before it was lost forever. Mom and Dad went on a frantic search for the ring, then Dad decided to warm up the car before continuing the hunt. After he turned on the car, he spent a couple more minutes helping her search, then they both decided to head off to work before they were late.

Dad walked out the front door, and realized that the car was no longer where he had just seen it.

With great trepidation, he looked down our long, steep driveway and across the street.

At least the car was easier to find than the ring.

It was on the other side of the street, still running, and next to the remains of a power pole, which had been broken into three pieces. One piece was sticking out of the ground, connected to the rear bumper of the car. Another piece was lying on the ground. The final piece was still attached to the wires and, pile-driver style, had slammed down right next to the roof of the car. Neighbors from the other side of the street, alerted by the noise and sudden power outage, were starting to gather.

The police officer who reported to the scene thought it was the funniest thing he had ever seen.

Dad didn't agree.

Dad regained his sense of humor just in time to let his office know he'd be late. I am sure they wanted to know what happened after his phone call: "Hi, this is Jim. The police are here now and I'll be in as soon as the power company arrives" *click*.

The car had one tiny dent and a broken tail light.

The ring felt out of Mom's sweater later that day.

Second story:

If I have shared this before, I apologize. I thought I had, but I couldn't find it while scanning my journal archives.

I had just arrived home after a closing shift, and had just gotten out of my car, when I heard a loud crash. I looked around and listened for more noise, but I couldn't see or hear any further signs of trouble. The noise had, perhaps, come from the back of the row of townhouses I live in, so I walked in and went straight to the door to the deck. I couldn't see anything out the window, so I stepped out onto the deck and looked around.

In my next-door neighbor's back yard, I saw a pair of headlights. One on top of the other. So much for winding down watching television after a long day at work.

Again, neighbors had begun to gather when I got to the scene of the accident (no stairs off the deck, so I had to go back through the house). There was also one man I had never seen before; he was wearing a shirt from a pizza chain and kept saying that he thought he had set the parking brake. He also revealed that he had planned on trading the Jeep in the next week.

So where, exactly, had the Jeep come from? A cul-de-sac at the top of a nearby hill. It had rolled down the hill, through a parking spot that had been vacated minutes before, and had crashed through three backyards (taking out the corner of a deck and a couple of low fences) before being overturned by another hill and coming to rest a few feet away from the sliding glass door in my neighbor's basement. Mind you, my neighbors had been chased out of their bedroom a few days before because the ceiling caved in, so they were sleeping on that basement.

The firefighters had a time getting their truck through the narrow, twisting roads of the subdivision. The tow truck driver had a bigger challenge: how to get the Jeep out of its predicament. Eventually, it was towed out roughly along the same route it had already taken.

I really don't know if the Jeep was totaled. It sat for a while in a guest space while the driver tried to make arrangements to take care of it. I am fairly sure the driver didn't have the proper insurance for delivery driving.

So that, my friends, is why my family always sets parking brakes.