I’m not a morning person, but I am a lazy person.
This was painfully obvious when I slept through my nine alarms again, finally jolting awake 43 minutes before a scheduled meeting my daughter had. Why I then stare at the clock for two more minutes trying to figure out what went wrong I’ll never understand, but there it is.
Our house is not a fancy house, but it is small.
We ran around, bumping into each other in the hallway or bathroom, stressing about being late and each tossing out ideas of whether or not to just reschedule the appointment. Wanting to be less lazy and more responsible people, we flew out the door mostly on time, passing through the gross fast food drive through lane muttering something about greasy breakfast potato, please, and maybe some coffee if it’s not yesterdays brew.
Of course we arrived on time because that is what we do.
A few more errands while in the area and home sweet home. Given I had a few more things to accomplish and my favorite almost 13 year old isn’t as into being dragged through banks and post offices like she once was, she opted to stay home. Then one final meeting with a friend and we could sail into what offered to be some really great dinner and maybe a movie.
“Oh yeah, mom”, she announced timidly, because she’s shy, “I almost passed out”. Now I’m a mom, which is why she calls me that, so those words hit my ears and went to my heart, down to my gut and bounced around a few other organs. “Excuse me?”
The story went that she stood, walked into another room, which began to spin and make her dizzy, followed by a strange loss of half of her vision. Grabbing the counter held her in the upright position and she recovered. Not so quick with this mama. We went to the emergency room, thank you.
CT scan, MRI scan, enough blood taken out of my baby girl to transfuse a small country, urine donated, EKG machine, heart monitor, blood pressure squeezing thing; my precious was hooked up!
Everything was normal and they found the culprit was dehydration once they stuck her yet again for an IV fluid drip and once the liquid got through her system, everything seemed to level off. Whew, nothing is seriously wrong with my girl, she’s just dried out.
They gave her a really cool picture of her brain as a memory of her stopping by.
I had been starving during our entire visit, but since she gets her good manners from me, I hadn’t mentioned it, while her supper was sugar water via a needle in the back of her hand. But now it was safe, so I said ‘pizza’?
I’m a very safe driver and I like pizza, so once I had shifted through the entire five speeds, I indulged on a slice my own self, while Kelly eagerly consumed real food as well. Driving along, enjoying the falling of the night’s darkness, each in our own thoughts, but both thankful she was not seriously ill and we’d be home soon.
“DEER!” My child yelled just as I, too, saw the animal in the road. As I mentioned, I’m a safe driver, so my speed was such that I had a little room to safely move to the right, hoping to avoid the impending splat being a really huge splat. Or worse, the splat being my child or me. I judged it correctly, in that the car/deer impact was done on the driver’s side (that’s mine) of the car. The thud, the eyes of the deer looking at me as it thudded, the feeling of that animal smashing into my car. It was more than a splat, I’ll tell you.
I don’t know a lot of the rules and what to do when I hit an animal that size is one of them. My mind was teasing me with “go look” while the mama in me was assessing my daughters face. The food lover in me was considering the pizza sauce splattered on the dashboard and I recall wondering how it got from the box on Kelly’s lap to the dashboard, but the options were too uncomfortable to consider further. The good citizen in me wanted to get out and direct traffic but I was sorta trapped in that my car door wouldn’t open. Was there a hunk of the animal stuck in there? What if I got it open and it wouldn’t shut again? What if there was a hunk of the animal and I couldn’t get it shut again?
I’m a strong woman but I do have a gross meter and it was screeching.
I called the sheriff’s department, answered their questions, agreeing to go home, where one of the deputies could meet me in a little while. It occurs to me now that my child kept eating pizza this whole time; a wager I would have lost had you asked me about that before this incident.
You think you know someone…..
Fast forward to this morning, this time my wake up call was the insurance company with instructions as to my next actions. It didn’t sound as painful as I’d expected, quite. I squeezed into the still stuck door, wishing it had somehow stretched overnight, (or my body shrunk) and took my miserable self to the dealership where I’d just recently purchased this brand new car that was now marred and mired and as far as I’m concerned ready for auto hospice.
They were gentle with me. I left with an estimate for the insurance adjuster to discern, my pride still intact and a little funny to end the drama. While looking at the car with the body repair guy, I noticed some kind of gunk where the deer had smacked, remarking how disgusting, yet somehow intriguing that there was tissue or brain matter on my car, ew cool!!! :blink:
He politely looked at the offending smather and said “that’s poop”
I could not have come up with a better summary of the day yesterday, if I’d tried myself.
