I offered to help get stuff out of her car before it got turned over to the repair folks who will tell the insurance company whether the frame is bent or not.

Afterwards, we sat and talked about it all. Turns out Richard had looked at our car’s clock, which has not been reset, which is why he’d insisted he’d been home around 2 a.m. I’d thought, well, okay, if it makes you feel better, but no it was not.

No, she said, *I* got home a little after 3:00. So yeah, closer to 3:30 for him.

Yup.

You know, the important details like that. Sometimes it’s just easier to sweat the small stuff.

But she’ll be alright.

She showed me the imprint on the back of her car from the bike rack that had been on the front of the county bus. We marveled at how much worse it could have been given all that kinetic energy. She felt so bad for the driver and hoped he wouldn’t lose his job, and he had been so worried about her, not himself. By law, the sheriff had had to come, the supervisor, the cops, and the bus had had to stay in rush hour exactly where it had hit her as they processed everything.

With idiots in expensive cars going around them to the right over the curb in front of all that law enforcement! Some people are determined not to learn the lesson of the moment.

She told me she’d asked me to come help out in part because, mindful of my health, last night they’d insisted I go to bed (even if I didn’t sleep) when it was clear the ER was going to drag on forever–and that she knew I’d needed to see her.

I did, very much. And that is one very perceptive young woman.