The Van

Sunday afternoon the kiddos and I headed out the door to pick up a couple of groceries. Just leaving the house on a Sunday afternoon puts me a little out of my element. I hardly ever go anywhere besides church on Sunday, also I try to do all of my errands during the week and in the morning. As we were all herding out the door I glanced at the van and noticed a "small" scrape on the front left corner. My breath left me and my brain started racing. Who did I hit? When did I hit someone? Did someone hit me? Is there a poor victim out there wondering who damaged there car and was so rude to leave without leaving a note? Feeling like a completely incompetent driver, I pulled into the parking lot and picked a spot with no one else around. Only to find that the commissary was closed. I missed it by 20 minutes. Thank the Lord I noticed before I got everyone out of the van! That probably would have been reason to cry. Then my nerves went crazy as I though "Great, now I have to drive more." The whole time we were out I was trying to think of how I had to have turned to have hit someone. When had I parked like that? I had to have been turning right into a parking spot, or backing out to the right, or someone else turned left around me and scraped me. I could not place the incident. Then, I was also thinking of how in the world I was going to blurt this gently out to Albert. I hate having to tell him of my mistakes when he is gone......... and when he is home for that matter! So, the next time I talked to him I had to bring it up. "Ok, I just have to blurt this out because I have no idea how to introduce the topic gently........ I have no idea how this happened, but I seem to have hit someone. I feel awful. I don't know if there is a victim driving around wondering what jerk hit him or when I hit someone, but there's a small scrape on the van...... It just scraped the paint off and there's some tan paint on the van. I just can't think of when it happened." Albert calmly questions, "tan paint? Did you hit the house?" Ding Ding Ding The lights are flashing and bells are going off! Yes, I hit the house! I feel ridiculous, but at least I know when it happened and that I only damaged our vehicle. 

Last Monday I was running out to get a birthday present and Albert's car was parked behind me. I knew it would be tight, but I thought I could squeeze out. (I get in these same predicaments with my body, maybe I don't have a clear view of things.) I had to pull forward and back up several times. I knew I got close to the pole once, but I had no idea that I scraped the bumper against it. And now you know yet another reason why I do not enjoy driving.