You will be relieved to hear that I now have a stiff (broken?) neck to go with my black eye.

Last night on my way home from the barn, I was stopped at a red light. A fairly bad book about pirates in the Florida Keys played quietly on the stereo. Frank was asleep in the backseat.

Suddenly, there was a loud slam and my car was propelled several feet into the intersection. My immediate (and customary) response was confusion, followed in quick succession by rage.

I got out and yelled, “Damn, lady! Are you drunk?!”

It was meant to be a rhetorical question.

The haggard-looking woman driver told me her son had just died. I felt bad for her, went to get my insurance papers. When I came back, she rolled down her window and released enough spirits into the evening air to power a small army of alcoholics. Apparently her poor son died in a large vat of gin and tonics.

I reached for my cellphone.

“You calling the cops?” she asked, with very little animation.

I said, “Hello? 911?”

She threw her little beige Hyundai into reverse, showing a sense of purpose that surprised me, and tore off down the Old Island Highway, leaving me with a sore neck and Frank with permanent neuroses about the stoplight at Rutherford and Uplands.

The good news: there isn’t too much damage to my car.

The bad news: despite the best efforts of the nice young police officer I spoke with, that woman is still on the road, probably looking for other subcompacts to push around. And I am starting to look downright disreputable, what with the black eye and inability to turn my head. If you are one of the many people scheduled to hear me speak or come to one of my workshops this week, please don’t judge. Bring cookies and heating pads and we’ll get through this together.

xoxo

S.