And The Day Started Out So Good

Today we celebrated Allen's Grandma's birthday. The festivities began with a temple session at 9:30. It was a lovely session, and for once Allen and I weren't rushing, we even got to be the witness couple. It was cool. [Allen's hijacking the blog today, just 'cause I can and 'cause Jess hasn't realized I'm doing it yet. Shhhh!] We got to see Josh and Rachael there. Rachel is so cute! They're looking at a due date of Mar. 28th or so. They invited us back to their place for a couple of minutes because they wanted to show us their baby room. So, of course we said yes! Who can resist the old baby-room peak invite?

We ran back to pick up our kids at Melody's home, and were heading to west on Bonanza Rd. Before we hit Pecos, this dum-dum (I'd use stronger language, but this is supposed to be a family-friendly blog, and Jessie might someday print it up. I don't want Riley/Emma/future-little-one turning to me and saying, "Daddy, what does d-d- umm., what does this word mean?") pulls out from an apartment complex on my right, turning left across the lanes of traffic. While I'm driving towards him. While it's still wet out. Dum-dum. I honk my horn, hit the brakes, and move to the left turning lane to get away. To increase his levels of dum-dum-ness, he speeds up. I don't know about you guys, but when I'm trying to cross the road, and see a very large mass of green mini-van coming down the street, I tend to stop. But, he's a dum-dum.

Screeetch! Bang! Riley: "Aaaahhhh! My new van!!!" [no, really, this is what he was screaming. He was really distraught because first Mommy broke his old van, and now Daddy killed another one. This kid is going to get a car abandonment complex.]Okay, so accidents happen all the time right? Even more frequently when it rains, and yet more frequently when your last name is Leavitt. [seriously, 3 times in a year? what gives???] So, it's really no big deal to just get your sorry dum-dum hiney out of the car, exchange insurance, and be on your merry way. But noooo. He's gotta be a dum-dum. He backs up, hits the gas, and swerves just enough so that I can get a nice long look at his license plate. Then he hurries on down the street. [insert your favorite aggravated scream here.] We, meanwhile, are pointing into oncoming traffic with a possible undriveable vehicle. At least I got his license plate. [really, I got his license plate. It fell off when he hit us. It's currently in my living room.] Several people stop to help. One, apparently, doesn't take kindly to hit-and-runners, and promptly follows the dum-dum down the road, and when dum-dum stops at another apartment complex, the cops get exact directions to the dum-dum's truck. The truck gets towed. Score one for the non-dum-dums!

Fortunately, most of my family is within 10 minutes, because of the temple trip, and so must of them arrive on-scene in short order. We're able to move the van to a side street. The cop has a hard time finding us, and then gets delayed because he's off towing dum-dum's truck. And kindly plucking dum-dum's insurance card from the truck. This he hand delivers to me. I quickly note that the insurance is current. Nice. I was afraid dum-dum took off because he was drunk and/or uninsured. Of course, the cop also said that there was a lot of spilled alcohol in the truck, so at least I got it half right.

So here we are, all apparently in one piece (note to all attorneys and/or defendants who might stumble across this blog posting: I am not an expert, and I have not evaluated myself or others for any injuries we may have incurred. This is a statement of opinion only, and not to be relied upon. We are no longer in the stress of the moment; it is not an excited utterance. If you try to use it for state-of-mind exception, I can simply say, "sure, it's what I thought at the time. I was wrong. Booyah!!")

In my untrained - and thus unqualified to offer an opinion [wow. what the freak has law school done to me???] opinion, it seems like everyone is okay, except for some stiffness and a little pain. We'll see what tomorrow brings, but no broken bones, no scary bloody messes, the kids' carseats didn't move. Oddly enough, the SRS light went on, but the airbag didn't. Anyone know what that's about?

We did get to Grandma's party. Thanks Dad, Josh, Rachel, Mom, et.al.!