Saturday, March 21, 2015

Life is Fleeting

During rainy conditions today, while traveling something like 60-65 miles per hour while going South on the Grand Parkway I hit a dog.  I was driving our Mini Cooper, a.k.a. The Super Mario cart after a visit with my husband's side of the family for a baby shower.  The dog came out of nowhere and I promise you this, I didn't see him/her until it was in my rearview mirror.  A white SUV was behind me in the left lane, I was in the right.

I was totally stunned.  I actually only felt the rear right tire lift and from what I can see, the dog seemed to weigh somewhere between our former dog, Bacon and our dog Shadow which translates roughly to 80+ pounds.  I kept driving (I know I should have stopped) because I could tell in my rear view mirror, it was a goner, not to mention the fact I would have had no tool or way to put the dog out of his misery.  I was also, as I stated, leaving a baby shower and it was raining and had been for sometime.

I called my husband, very shaken but proceeded onward toward home.  My hands kept shaking at the enormity of taking a life.  Though it was a dog or coyote, I was trembling.  This is the second dog that I have hit and back in high school I hit a cat.  At any rate, I drove on.

Another 15 miles later, my A.C. wasn't cooling and the windows were fogging terribly.  Then the light came on and went from orange to red in 3 seconds flat.  My phone was dying and I had no cord for charging.  The light was an indicator that the engine was overheating.  I wondered if something in the incident made me lose oil.  I phoned Glen, again and he told me to pull over.  By the time I reached the Rosenburg exit I had made an erroneous assumptiom of the A.C. and the warning light. When I turned off all the fans, etc. the light went off.  I was having great difficulty seeing though my windshield, passed my exit and then low and behold the light was on again.  After pulling over onto 2218, I called Glen again, gave him a report and let the car cool. When pulling to a stop, it all but died. I got out and looked toward the passenger fender (where I thought the dog hit) and found no damage.  I had truly only felt the back passenger tire lift.

I let it cool and tried again but only made it one exit further pulled into the McD on 36 and called Glen again. He told me to wait while he found me.  I sat and chewed off most of one of my "fake" nails.  When Glen arrived he was surprised to see a lot of the front end hanging and dented.  After inspecting the damage and finding dog/coyote hair he determined I hit it head on.  The radiator was smashed.  For the record it is now more than 5 hours later and my heart is still racing.

Why? Why was the accident not more profound to me--- why didn't the car careen and then roll, why didn't I slam on the breaks (even afterwards)?  Why?  The Mini Cooper is super low to the ground, why didn't I get hurt?

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