Minor Car Accident

I'm going to tell this story now and get it out of the way before November. This coming month is suppose to be good, productive, habit forming life-ness - no, no, I can't be too optimistic.

Quick Story: I was rear ended by a car causing me to go into the back of a minivan. No one is injured although I'm getting quiet sore in the shoulders and base of back. Everyone has insurance. I'm getting my car looked at tomorrow for an estimate then waiting on all the insurances to collect the stories and make decisions.

The Long Story with Side Notes and a Funny Bit:
I had left early this morning to make it to a press check at the printers for work. Now, the nights before press checks I get paranoid that I'm going to be late. It doesn't help I completely forgot about the last one (it was on a Monday morning, I slept over the weekend and forgot). Anyway, so the day started already with me feeling blah after a nights weird dreaming.

It was very cold, my car had frost on it, and it was very foggy. I was driving carefully on the high way, on the busy side roads.... Living in the city of bridges of course I had to go over one to get to the printers. So, I go over the Willamette river and make a left off the bridge going down a big hill where oddly enough it wasn't foggy. This off ramp merges onto one of Porltand's smaller highways - it's really just a 4 lane road, 2 each way that you get to go 45 miles on. It's 7:00am at this point.

A mini van is in front of me. I'm watching it to see how it's going to merge into traffic and then how I'm going to merge into traffic. I don't remember my speed but I couldn't have been going very fast maybe 35. So, the van instead of merging in front of a little white truck, which I was expecting it to because there was room, instead it chooses to break - hard. I break hard. The car behind me doesn't break so hard.

I get hit from behind causing me to hit the van in front of me. What's the first thing I do? Cry. I park the car and start to open the door but I can't even stand up because I'm sobbing. The other two drivers are woman. Very sweet woman who are very concerned that I'm crying and am I hurt? One woman takes my hand and I hold on to it and tell her I'm not hurt just surprised and this is my first car accident.

I collect my self enough to get out of the car and we discuses what needs to be done. I end up calling 911 because in Texas that's what you do. Well, I found out that the Portland city police are just like the Dallas* city police - they don't come out if no one is hurt and you're not blocking traffic. I was told by the 911 operator not to call again for this type of situation. I was a little taken aback by the forcefulness that the operator used but maybe I was tying up the line for a gun shot victim...

*In the suburbs of Dallas the police will come out to help with just about anything but not the police with in the specific Dallas area.

Anyway... the cars are not even that bad. There is no damage to the van or to the front of my car that I can tell. My back bumper is a little dented, scraped up and either the bummer is pulled out from the car or my hatch back door got pushed in - I can't really tell and I don't really want to try opening the hatch back just encase I can't get it closed again.

No one was injured thankfully. I am getting sore in the shoulders and lower back - there was no discussion of if you wake up and can't move your neck who's insurance is going to take care of it. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it I guess. I spent maybe an hour with my insurance and the woman in the car's insurance. I don't want to pay anything out of pocket so i'll wait and see who's covering what. Hopefully it will get resolved fairly quickly. I do have to say I have learned a lot about what insurance companies want when filing a report. I also realize I wasn't thinking completely clearly, for example I got the mini van's license plate number but not the cars. I got the car woman's phone number but not the woman in the minivan.

Funny Bit:
Now the woman behind me was really nice and was feeling really bad for hitting the back of my car. I was being nice about everything because I was just upset but not feeling angry - I mean, it happens. Anyway, she made the comment: "You're being so nice about this. I was afraid you'd be some big angry man!" I wonder if she made this assumption because I still have my Texas license plates, LOL.

I finally did make it to my press check and to work. My male boss told me "I'd give you a hug if it wasn't harassment. I'm just so glad you're ok". Me too!