My 'Near Death' Experience That Now Leaves Me Annoyed

First off, let me apologize in advance for the salacious title to this article.  No one died or even came close to dying unless, of course, you count my heart stop beating for a few brief seconds.  

Last Friday morning after all my kids were off at school, the phone rang and, seeing the caller ID said Darien Public, I assumed the call was concerning one of my children at school.   The male voice on the phone introduced himself as Officer Whyte from the .  Since my kids were already on my mind, my first thought was, “That is strange, I don’t think any of them are old enough yet to be in trouble with the police and shouldn’t they be at school anyway?”

Officer Whyte then proceeded to say, “I am so very sorry to have to tell you this but…” just then the hairs on my arms stood up and I caught my breath…“Your husband,” he went on to say, and my heart most definitely stopped beating (or at least it felt like it did)!  And with that, I immediately let my imagination sprint wildly into the dark place it goes to whenever I fear something terrible has happened to my children or husband.  

In that brief second, my imagination had determined that Geoff had somehow been hurt (or worse) and it was so bad that this poor police officer had to call me to break the terrible news.  I was about to hear the most terrifying words ever spoken, those saying that I needed to get to the hospital (or worse).  Luckily, before I could fully plan what outfit I would wear to the funeral (yes, I am that dramatic at times) my ears tuned back in to what Officer Whyte was really saying, “Your husband’s car was hit at the Darien train station this morning.” 

“Oh thank God!” I exclaimed, which confused Officer Whyte no doubt quite a bit, but if my husband and children were all right, I immediately had perspective on a badly dented rear fender and broken back taillight.

Officer Whyte went on to tell me that there was a witness at the scene who saw a woman driving a black Audi back out of her parking spot and into our Suburban and then speed away from the accident. Unfortunately, the CT license plate number the witness had tried to record was incorrect (not 765 ZOO?) and the police were, therefore, not able to track it to any registered car.  “Bummer”, I thought, thanked Officer Whyte for the information, and hung up the phone to call our insurance company to tell them the bad news.

As I indicated, the accident happened last Friday morning and, at the time, I was relieved that my family was safe.   Now that it has been a week since the accident and I have had time to fully process the ramifications of what happened, I am naturally greatly annoyed at the woman driving the Black Audi who quite aggressively smashed into our parked car and then cowardly, callously, rudely, selfishly, and nastily left the scene.  

We are left to deal with repairing the car, making do with just one car for a few days, paying our deductible, and hoping our insurance premium doesn’t increase for having filed the repair claim.  I wonder if the driver has been haunted by any feelings of remorse?  I would like to imagine it has been eating away at her so that she is having trouble sleeping, eating, enjoying her everyday activities, and looking at herself in the mirror, but I realize that is just my overactive imagination once again projecting and most likely not the case.  

It is both annoying and disappointing when people are not compelled to do the right thing.   However, I am compelled to get back to the realization that as long as my family is all right, we can deal with life’s annoyances.  Perspective is everything after all.