The Fender Bender

So for those of you who have heard...everyone is okay, everything is fine, there is nothing to worry about.
Friday as I drove home from school pick-up, I decided to call my dad. The kids had been reading the school newsletter to announce that there would be two baseball players (Steve Garvey and Don Baylor) coming to sign autographs and speak to the kids and I wondered if my dad would want either of their signatures...As I was talking to him, I came to a stop behind a car at a stop light. The streets at this time are rather busy due to the school letting out so I always drive a little more cautious at this point...good thing. As I was talking to my dad on my bluetooth (yes, I was legally talking to my dad) I looked into my rearview mirror and saw the woman behind me driving her black Jeep Cherokee slam on her brakes, smoking her tires to avoid my van. After seeing and hearing the screech of the tires, and continuing my conversation with my dad and my passengers I said "Wow, kids, we just about got into an acc--CRASH" Didn't even finish the word when our van propelled forward rather abruptly and with a fair amount of force. I saw the whole thing through my rear view mirror too. Although the woman directly behind me stopped and avoided me, the man behind her didn't and crashed into her which sent her colliding into me. I looked around my car, making sure all the kids were okay, and they were, and then walked out to check on the woman behind me.
She was fine, as seemed her passengers (another car full of kids from school pick up), but the driver of the first car was in a little bit of shock and had marks on his head and chest from the deployment of his airbags. We just kept reassuring him that everyone was fine and that he needed to calm down and go sit down. I don't blame him for being a little on edge, he knew he was at fault and caused a decent collision, but considering no one was seriously injured, we had a lot to be grateful for, needless to say, he wasn't in the state of mind to accept my words of comfort and kinda shrugged me off.
Chris and I had been planning on going to the temple this same night and needed to meet Ty and Denice in about an hour so I called Chris as my first call to inform him that we might need to tell them that we'd be a little late. (The police had already been called by this time.) Then I called Shea (whose child I was carpooling along with mine) to tell her that we'd be running a little late but that all was okay, and finally I called my dad back to make sure he knew that all was well, after all, he had heard the whole thing.
It was funny though, everytime I got out of the car to talk to the firemen, (who came within minutes) and the police, and the others involved all they did was look at me, then down at my 7 month belly and go "Oh no! Oh no!" and I had to reassure probably 7 different people that they were not going to need to deliver a baby. In fact I told one nervous firefighter that at this point I could probably deliver my own so he didn't need to worry. I think that calmed him a little. With his reaction I probably wouldn't want him delivering my child anyway...
After what seemed like a really long time and a lot of traffic backed up behind us, after all it was still after-school pick up, they had us drive to the side of the road. I pulled the van over and sat with the kids telling them they needed to keep their seatbelts on. Good thing because within a few minutes we got rear ended again, this time by a firefighter pulling over the first car at fault. I laughed, opened my driver's door to look at him and received his sheepish facial expression. I just laughed again and yelled "Just isn't my day."
The kids all thought the whole scenario was the coolest as they kept excitedly telling Chris (who by the time I was giving my statement to the police had left work to come check on us and had now arrived) "We got in an accident and we got to meet real firemen and policemen." Walker kept talking about how the first driver's car was "really wrinkled" and Maverick just thought the stickers that the firemen brought them were amazing. As far as they were concerned they now had amazing fodder to talk about on Monday at school.
So now I'm in my rental car (a really uncomfortable Chrysler van, sorry all of you Chrysler van owners, I'm purposely omitting the model of the van so as not to offend any who might own this model) and hearing the story over and over again from my kids. But really after all was said and done, and even after hearing the estimate of how much damage was done to tour van (shocking!), I can't complain. The important thing was that no one was hurt and in the whole scheme of things, results could've been much different. This is why we have insurance, this is why we wear our seat belts and this is why we buy good american made cars. (That last part was for you dad...)
Speaking of the cars, the first driver's ( a Ford 500) was totalled (no question about it) as it had taken total impact on its front end. He was really concerned about it. Knowing a little about Fords, I was explaining to the driver (the man in shock) that this is how the car is designed and built, to take the impact rather than letting the passenger take the impact. He didn't seem very interested in my lesson, but I blame it on the shock. :)