"It Could Have Been Us"

On Sunday afternoon, my husband and I took a brief getaway to a Small Historic Town near here. We stayed in an historic inn, had the bed and breakfast special, shopped a little, and had a swim. Then we started home. There was pretty, light snow falling.

As we neared home, traffic slowed, and we saw up ahead what had happened: a car was sitting at a right angle to the road, facing a pole. The roads were starting to get slippery. My husband turned to me and said, "it could have been us." He reflected on what a good idea it was for me to shop for just a few minutes longer at the Scandinavian gift shop.

We returned home, unpacked, did a little laundry, took naps. We heard the message machine beep: it was a call from the pastor at my husband's church, saying that it was his call whether he would come to the Monday night service that evening.

It was still snowing.

My husband thought we needed to go out to pick up our dog at the sitter anyway, so we would leave early and go to church.

Almost immediately after leaving, we thought that might have been a mistake. The streets were very slippery and traffic was stopped on the freeway. We saw another traffic backup and another accident. We had hoped to leave earlier, but now my husband was glad. "If we had left a few minutes earlier, that could have been us."

It was beginning to look like we might not arrive at the church on time. We considered, more than once, just forgetting about church, and continuing on to get the dog. We took an alternate route, since our normal route to church was, again, deadlocked traffic.

It looked like it was going to be close. We might get to church with two or three minutes to spare. But in the end, we made a left turn into the church parking lot at five minutes before the church service.

Just as we were turning left, the car behind us hit us, on the driver's side. There is a cracked taillight, a dent on the left bumper, and the driver's side down. Also, the driver's side door will not close.

After the police report and the exchange of insurance information, we had to drive home with a rope to hold the door closed. (yes, we did pick up the dog.)

Did I tell you, my husband was driving, but it was my car?

I'm trying to put the best construction on this (many people at the church offered to help us, we are glad no one was hurt, etc.) but I'm not totally succeeding.