So... I told her not to go out today. Remember that: I looked out the window, contemplated the dark skies, my sore throat, and the fact that I was still tired, and said I didn't want to go out. And then I told her I didn't think she should either. And I said it more than once, which I never do; I never tell my mother not to go out, period, and today I said it at least three times. I don't know why I felt so strongly that my mother should stay home, except that every so often I do get those "feelings" that something bad will happen and it always does. (Examples: had one before my cockatiel died. Had one before my great-aunt's car died on the way home. Had one the night before my uncle fell into a diabetic coma while driving and was killed by a semi.) This time it didn't feel like anything much, unlike the horrible sinking in my chest I usually get. I just... looked out the window, and it hit me that today was not a good day to be leaving the house. Except...
She did. And now our car is horribly smushed on the passenger's side and the front tire is gone and my beautiful car may never come back. Of course, our family is weird and so there's another car almost exactly like it sitting in the garage right now because my parents have the same car and also my father has a Cadillac for no reason at all so we don't need a rental.
My mother herself is... well, I want to say "fine" but I think we'll have to see tomorrow; the hospital said it always feels much worse the next day. As far as injuries, the doctor says whiplash but she says she feels nothing and saw nothing on the X-ray and there's something about a neck injury but she says she only feels it in her chest where she hit the steering wheel. Nothing's broken, torn, bleeding, or really bruised. So she's home and feels alright.
She says when the car stopped moving it stopped just next to a pole. She says she was hit so hard it just wouldn't stop. You never like to get a phone call from your shaky-voiced mother saying she was in an accident and your father is there and the car is being towed away and then OKAY I'LL TALK TO YOU LATER BYE
WAIT WHAT, I HAVE QUESTIONS
and then your shaky-voiced grandmother who never shows emotions besides annoyance and anger calls and she's not nearly as shaky-voiced but she's scared, she's scared for her daughter and her husband left the house without telling her anything and she didn't know where I was and what's going on.
And then she made chocolate chip cookies, which I don't know that my grandmother has ever made before in all of her born days.
The inside of the car is fine, she says, but I do wonder if I had been in the car what would have happened to me; there's no steering wheel on my side, so how far would I have gone, wearing a seatbelt as I always do? Would I have hit the dashboard and made the airbag come out?
If I was in the car, would I have seen the crazy woman coming before my mother did? Would I have convinced her to take a different way home, because she often thinks out loud to me about which way she'll go?
Before she had the accident she asked me what was on my shopping list and I said Earl Grey Tea and ramen noodles (Oriental flavor). This was at about 2:30. She called again at 3 with the shaky voice (and immediately I felt guilty for being upset about being woken up again.)
When she finally, finally, finally came home at 7, looking a little glassy-eyed from Vicodin (she says she won't take anymore because she hates it, but I have a feeling she'll reluctantly take some more tomorrow, if she gets that prescription filled) she came home with... English Breakfast tea. I don't know why, but that feels like the cherry on top of the whole thing. The car may be dead (she said it made a horrible noise when she tried to turn it on) and she'll probably be in pain and then THE TEA IS WRONG.
I latched onto that (but didn't complain to her because, come on) because that's what you do when things go wrong: you find the tiniest thing and say "WELL, OF COURSE THAT HAD TO HAPPEN." Like losing your purse that just so happens to have your great-grandmother's earrings in it, or getting sick and throwing up on your expensive shoes; it's not the worst thing that happened, but it's the thing that makes the most sense, and is the easiest to get upset about because the rest of you is thinking "wait, what? what do I do now? what's going on?" It's the most everyday mistake, more everyday than a car accident, so that's what I've been thinking about, because it's just easier than OH GOD I COULD HAVE LOST MY MOTHER or OH GOD MY MOTHER COULD BE IN THE HOSPITAL WITH SEVERE INJURIES RIGHT NOW. Nope, the wrong tea.
I'll take the wrong tea if it means I get to keep my mother. I can live without tea. If you said "you can keep your mama, but you'll never have tea again" I'd take my mother. I'd take my mother in exchange for everyone in the world's tea, because that is my MOTHER and I love her and cannot live without her. Cannot. Ever.
I drank some and it tastes pretty good. It'll probably always be car-crash tea to me now though.
She did find a pair of sneakers she likes which is big, big news because my mother's feet are so picky it's nearly impossible to find shoes for her. So the day isn't a complete loss. Oh, and Adam Lambert at the AMAs, how awesome was that? My mother was underwhelmed, but she's underwhelmed about almost everything ever (she's a lot less shaken up than I would be, although she's definitely more shaken than usual) but dude's face in his crotch and grabbing vaginas and making out with the male keyboardist. There's no point to that sentence besides HOSHIT ADAM.
I missed Kris's presenting because we were next door gathering sweaters for the homeless and then had to find the tripped circuit breaker but the thingie wouldn't open. Today was really weird, you guys.
Oh and an unreleased acoustic version of one of my favorite Kylie songs EVER, Paper Dolls, leaked. It's not very different though.
-3:36 AM
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