Misadventures

Yesterday was beset by numerous ill events, all of which rained down varying degrees of mishaps in my direction, culminating in having an SUV rear-end my car.

Thankfully, none of the calamaties were very malignant, most were at best inconvenient. And most amazingly of all, my car suffered no damage from the collision. (Given how my body was whipped around like an infant being shaken by a baby sitter, I thought the entire rear end of the car would be a crumpled mess. But alas, no.)

A partial list of notable events:

6:30am Conference is cancelled, leaving me to wonder I why came to work so early and why I wasn't told it was cancelled. Fortunately, the caterer wasn't told of the cancellation either, so I got to munch on a bagel while sitting around the empty conference hall by myself. (Oddly, the caterer came around 15 minutes later and took away the food.)

A trip to my locker to put away some papers revealed a broken water pipe in the ceiling, which had conveniently broken right above my locker, successfully soaking and ruining its entire contents. Luckily, my $900 surgical loups were somehow spared from the downpour. The maintenance guy assures me it's not the sewage line, but I think he's just saying that to make me feel better. But to his credit, the water didn't smell like poop.

I find out later on during the day that the Afternoon Conference is cancelled as well, thus cancelling my presentation that I stayed up until midnight to finish the night before. So I stayed up late into the night and woke up early for no reason. But, as a consolation prize, that meant I didn't have to stick around until 5pm, so I left early.

A short trip to run an errand almost evolved into an epic adventure when our normal route was blocked by a train (moving at a very pokey speed), necessating a detour to end all detours. But the weather was quite cooperative, and Nathalie and I enjoyed tooling around in the convertible.

And lastly, on our way to Target to buy Nathalie a new Ironman watch, my car is rear-ended by a large black SUV driven by some teenage boob. The impact was so violent that the force of my head slamming into my headrest disoriented me for a bit. But unbelievably, other than a scuff mark on our bumpers, there was no significant damage to either of the cars or the occupants. The teenage kid was shaking so hard from adrenaline, anxiety, guilt, and fear that I actually felt a little sorry for him.

But that won't stop me from going after him if my bumper ends up falling off later.

I'm really glad that my car didn't have any damage. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I don't know what body shops are open in New Orleans. On top of that, who knows if there are even any rental cars available... This could have been a real headache.

On a good note though, I finally satisfied this strange craving I've been having for fried chicken yesterday.