Today's Excitement: Angela, the crazy car people magnet!

Tonight I think I need to take a warm bubble bath, maybe have my wonderful hubby make me one of those rare drinks I enjoy occassionally and just find a good book to read and forget about my day.

Why?  Because today I was a magnet for crazy people on the road.

The day started out ordinary enough.  I worked from home today as with every Tuesday.  My daughter was with me as usual - doing her homeschool work.  We actually made it through our items for the day in pretty good time today.  Then about 2:30 we left the house for a meeting with our supervising teacher with the charter school.  We were a bit late getting out the door because as I started to leave at 2:15, I had a last minute "fire" pop up that I needed to take care of for work.  So I sent a text to our supervising teacher telling her I had gotten caught on the way out and might be a few minutes late.

A few minutes later found us sitting at stop sign just a couple miles from the house when all of a sudden we found ourselves pushed into the middle of the intersection.  We had been rear-ended!  They are so right when they say most accidents occur within just a few miles of your house.  In the past three years I've been rear-ended twice now and both times it was within a couple miles of the house, both times I was at a complete stop when hit.  The last time was in the Tahoe and a Mini-Cooper hit us.  No contest - the Tahoe had some minor scratches and the Mini-Cooper was totalled.

Today though I was in our Accord and the culprit was a taxi cab.  It actually took me a moment to realize what had happened and then I pulled off the side of the road.  The cab driver tried to talk me out of trading information but I nicely told him that I would take his information and let my husband take a look at the car when he got home tonight.  The damage does not appear to be much on the surface - a slight ring where one of the bolts from his license plate hit the bumper and next to it the bolt actually came out and got stuck in my bumper.  Can't pull it out at all!  At first actually he tried to tell me he did not think it was his bolt!

There is road construction going on near where this happened and at one point a truck driver stopped and asked if I needed any help.  He said that he had seen the whole thing and would help if need be.  How sweet!  I really appreciated that.

So in the end I got all his information which I'm passing off to my hubby tonight and he'll take care of things from here.  I've learned the hard way just because the surface appears fine does not mean there is not worse damage that needs to be addressed.

To the right you can see the indent (a bit of a hole on one side) where the one bolt from his license plate hit my bumper.  On the left you can see the bolt that came out of his license plate and got stuck in my car.  Will take pliers to get that thing out!

Here's a couple better close up pictures of the bolt.  Stuck in there tight!

This would be enough to shake up my day - but it was not done yet!  On the way home from the meeting, just as I was getting back into town and hitting traffic (it was just about 4:40 at this time) a sliver car full of young men came flying up behind me swerved around me and cut me off.  Then they slammed on their brakes.  Tires smoked and the back end of their car swung over to one side.  I had to put on my brakes pretty quickly and swerve to the side to avoid hitting them.  Talk about unnerving after being rear-ended myself just a few hours before!

I then watched as they began swerving in and out of traffic - once going from the far right lane all the way across to a left turn lane.  At that point the car screeched to a halt again and three guys piled out of the car.  At that point I noticed a small white BMW in front of them that put on its blinker, turned back into traffic and took off across the intersection.  By this time I had already passed the silver car which the guys piled back into and it pulled back into traffic.  Now myself and two or three other cars were stuck in what had now become a one lane road between these two cars.  The BMW turned off the main road a little further up and once the road went back to two lanes the silver car took off in pursuit.  I was thankful they had pulled off the main road.  Then less than a mile up the road as I passed a side street I noticed the white BMW waiting to pull out.  As I passed I saw the silver car pull up behind and the three guys piled out again.  I could see the fear on the other guys face as he pulled out directly behind me. 

My turn was coming up so I got into the left turn lane and then my heart dropped as I saw the BMW's blinker come on and pull into the lane behind me.  But he went across the other lane into a fast food restaurant parking lot that was on the corner of the upcoming intersection.  The silver car pulled across the lanes going into the parking lot as well, narrowly missing a head on collision with a truck coming from the other way.  As I sat in the left turn lane I saw both cars come flying out the otherside of the parking lot onto the same street which I was waiting to turn into.

At this point I was able to find my bluetooth (which had been knocked onto the floor when I was rear-ended).  I called 911 and found out that the dispatcher (I wonder if we only have on in our little town) was on another line with someone else who had reported the same thing.  Not sure if the cops ever found them, but I am worried about the guy they were chasing.

Talk about a freaky weird day.  Like I said - I was a magnet for crazy drivers today.  I was praying for the guy in the white BMW.  Traffic was very busy and the guys chasing him did not seem to care that others were around.  I had the feeling if they were able to corner him they were going to drag him from that car and pummel him regardless of who was around.

So that was my crazy day.  How was your day?