Ouch.

My morning did not get off to a really great start. Neither did Kim's. Kim is a seemingly nice enough woman I met this morning when she pulled out of 44th into Butler Street and stopped causing my car to collide with the front end of her car. I have never ever in my 25 years of driving had an accident so this was a new experience for me. I backed over to the curb and she pulled forward onto 44th and we stood at the hood of her car exchanging insurance info. She was suspiciously knowledgeable about exactly what information we needed to exchange. This took a lot longer than I thought it needed to but Kim is one of those women who keeps so much stuff in her purse that she can't even look around in her bag without taking some stuff out and setting it down nearby. Her wallet was so stuffed it took her several minutes just to pry out her driver's license. Meanwhile I found a tablet of paper and a pen for us and with her permission photographed both her car and mine.

So, with various bits hanging off my car I drove back home in the predawn darkness. For some reason My Beloved awoke when he heard me coming in the kitchen and stumbled sleepily downstairs. "I thought you were knocking" he said not really awake. "I had a car accident" I said apologetically. "Are you okay?" he asked to his credit despite the fact that I'm clearly standing in the kitchen looking just fine. "What do you need me to do?" I knew he really dreaded the prospect of having to drive me the one hour trip up to the clinic where I was scheduled to work so I let him off easy. "Put some pants on and come outside and look at my car." My Beloved had to saw one of the loose bits the rest of the way off the car and defying generations of tradition passed over the duct tape in favor of slip ties to secure my dangling turn signal.

Later, fueling up at the Starbucks in Gibsonia the lady ahead of me said "Well, I'm breathing and walking" in response to the barista's "How are you." I stood behind her nodding.