When it rains... it's a dumb saying and it just ain't funny.

This is not funny. Well, maybe I can make it funny, but at the moment, it ain't. I wasn't going to write about the accident at all, but now I have to.

It all started earlier this month. After dropping B.B. off, I decided to treat myself to McD's for breakfast. I was so looking forward to getting home to enjoy my coffee, my McMuffin and hours of quiet to work on a paper.

It was raining... so I was driving Kitty. Kitty, at 140,000 miles, has surer footing and is much more reliable than Daisy is at 160,000. I was less than 1/4 mile from home, following a van. The van slowed, pulling onto the shoulder to the right as if it were going into the bank parking lot right there, so I slowed but continued forward.

Suddenly, the van veered back out in the road and in that split second when I saw the horrified look on the driver's face I thought to myself, "Gee, lady, don't cha know you need to check your rear-view before attempting an illegal u-turn?!!!"

But that was just a split-second. I tried evasive action to the left, but I was unable to get away from her. My passenger side front wheel made contact with her driver's side front wheel, rendering both vehicles undriveable. As we sat there, parallel to one another, I rolled down Kitty's passenger side window to hear her on the phone (with her husband, I presume) saying "I don't know how this happened, I was only turning left and I had my signal on."

At which point, I, um, lost my cool for a second (Kitty was UN DRIVE ABLE! I only needed to go over the hill in front of us to BE HOME!) and snapped, "Oh lady, don't lie!"

Probably not the wisest move on my part... to save lots of time and LONG STORY... she persisted in said lie. To the point that the police officer, while he believed me, had to report both stories on the accident report and could not define fault as the pictures could not prove who was telling the truth. (Although, IMHO, any fool could see that her story, while possible, made absolutely no sense!)

Ahem! (regaining composure)

My insurance company said since they couldn't PROVE fault, declared equal fault, and since Kitty is so old and only had liability coverage, paid 1/2 of Lying Lady's damages, none to me. Her insurance company, since there was no way to prove fault, decided to pay NOTHING. I learned this over almost 2 weeks later, after Kitty had been sitting in a tow lot for all this time, racking up storage fees.

Luckily, I ran into the owner of the towing company (TJ) a few days later and explained the situation. After hearing the whole thing, he said he thought I should sue to get the truth to come out, and offered to only charge me the towing and not the storage. He took Kitty to a body shop owned by Rick, one of my former customers, and one of the nicest guys around. Rick is going to call me to let me know whether Kitty is worth fixing. (It pains me to say that,)

So, I'm stuck driving Miss Daisy (see Kitty's post) , who has been presenting all sorts of problems of late. I had to drive Daisy back to the farm (around 90 miles one way) for Easter since I hadn't been back home since Christmas. Easter weekend, as most of you know, was unbelievably wet. After running through a major puddle Sunday night, Daisy decided to stall at the next red light in P-town. After balking through 2 more light changes, she finally restarted and got us back to L-town without further incident.

Then tonight happened. The girls had rehearsal and got out at 7:30. It was again, raining cats and dogs. I was just going to run through a drive thru to get the girls something hot, fast. On the way to the restaurant, I encountered a huge puddle, and a car coming in the other direction, so I couldn't avoid it. She started stalling in the middle of the 192 bypass, but I was able to keep her running long enough to get into the drive thru... where she died. Kept trying to start her, but no luck.

Since she's a standard, and there was ample hill and parking lot behind the restaurant, (it's adjacent to a truck stop) I had to put her in neutral, get out and push her backward, (in the rain, with two little girls in the truck, while some nice man in a car watched me) so I could turn the wheel to get her started downhill. Popping the clutch didn't work. (P.D. and B.B. are cheering their little hearts out, begging Daisy to start... but that didn't work either.)

So now it's 8:15, pitch dark, raining to beat the band, and I'm about a mile from home with no way to get there with two tired little girls with me. I reasoned that while if Daisy had a chance to dry out she might start in the morning, I would be stuck with absolutely no way to get the girls to school if I left Daisy where she sat. I needed to call and get her towed home. (TJ's, of course!)

I started to call Sabrina, but Sabrina's helped me over and over and over again with the girls since I've been in school, so I called Filly. My thinking was first things first, get the girls home and dry... besides, there wouldn't be room in the cab of the tow truck for all three of us. Filly said she'd come and get the girls while I called TJ's.

Meanwhile, the two little girls and I are sitting in the bottom of a dark parking lot with our blinkers going. Of all the cars that passed us, only one nice guy pulled up to see if we could use help. I didn't get his name but I will definitely be sending blessing prayers his way tonight.

The truck arrived driven by none other than TJ himself! I told him I had a friend coming to get the girls, and he agreed to wait. Immediately after that short conversation, my phone rang and it was Filly telling me that about 2 feet of water was running over her road and she couldn't get to me... sigh.

The point of all that: Don't tell lies, even to save yourself money or heartache. You have no idea how your lies may affect someone else, or whether their situation might actually be worse than yours would have been if you'd told the truth. If I'd had Kitty (she would already be repaired if the lady told the truth!) none of the first part of tonight would have been an issue. Still, I forgive the lady... maybe she had mean husband and was scared he'd be mad at her for causing the wreck. Anyway....

So, we're stuck, right? NO. TJ said to get in my truck and put it in neutral, and he'd just take us all home that way. By this time I was game for anything. So, here we went, riding along as my truck was winched up onto the slant bed, then riding again as the bed picked us up and moved back into the flat position. TJ said if to just call his cell from mine if he accidentally drove past my house....

Here we go... riding around the 192 bypass at what felt like ten feet off the ground, lights ablazing everywhere. I felt like I should practice my celebrity wave if it hadn't been too dark and rainy for anyone to see me. The girls decided with all the lights going and riding so high up in the air that they were on a carnival ride. Wheee!

Hey, at least they have a new, interesting memory. They'll probably tell their kids about this.

We arrived home to find no electricity. We had to run around hunting for candles so I could see to write the check for the tow. (Which, I'm thinking, he cut me YET ANOTHER break on.) When the electricity came back on a few minutes after TJ left, I noticed that the floor in the basement looked awfully shiny... I turned on the basement light... 2 inches of water.

This is the same basement I spent the whole summer of 2009 agonizing over who I'd get to water-proof it. The same basement I nearly bleached myself to death in trying to kill any leftover mold from BEFORE the waterproofing.... The same one I just had tiled a few months ago because I was FINALLY confident that it wouldn't leak again. The same basement where the girls had just put ALL their toys so they could have nice restful bedrooms and a nice playroom downstairs.

Sump pumps don't work when the electricity goes out...

Instead of a quick, hot supper, the girls had peanut butter and jelly, and I'm REALLY hoping Daisy will start in the morning. Filly said she'll come and get the girls if she won't.

I am still blessed in many ways: I already knew TJ and that was comforting; if Kitty is fixable I know Rick will be fair with me; the girls weren't overly traumatized by tonight's events and didn't have to be out in the rain; I have some very dear friends I can call when I'm in a bind like this one; and I have something of a backup plan for tomorrow. I may be able to salvage some of the girls' toys, I always said they had too many. Oh, and something interesting happened in my life so I could write about it.

I apologize. I really thought I could put a better spin on this. (I will admit, I had to laugh at the girls' "carnival ride" earlier tonight.) I'm sure I'll find it all amusing in about 6 months...

But tonight? While I can find some silver linings...

Well, it just ain't funny.