If it's not one thing, it's two things

Yesterday proved the axiom that goes "if it's not one thing, it's two things."  First, Tino's mother called at noon and announced that she was having surgery on Monday and that she probably had cancer.  Why she didn't say anything to that point, we don't know, but Tino, of course, wanted to get on a plane and see his mom before the surgery.  We found him a cheap fare out of Baltimore ($156 one-way vs $1200-1700 out of Dulles on TWA), and the race began to make it to BWI from Front Royal, including stopping in Reston so Tino could pack for a trip of indefinite length.

The traffic was really bad for a random (rainy) Sunday afternoon, and I'm sure that surprises no one.  I had been home about one hour before I noticed lights flashing outside.  I was curious what the cops were up to, so I went out in my jammies to peek through the trees.  Sigh.  There was the truck with a totally trashed Honda on it's bumper.  It seems they chose to commit caricide on the Jeep and then fled on foot.  

It took at least an hour (most of which I spent in the back of a cop car, uh) to fill out all the paperwork and get the Honda towed.  As it turns out, they have insurance, which is better than not having insurance.  This way, we file a claim with their insurance and our rates are unaffected.  At least that's what I'm trying to do, but nothing is that simple, of course.  Hopefully, a lawyer will not be involved.  The damage to the truck is comically small compared to the Honda, but the truck has to be fixed and have the suspension and transmission checked.  The truck was pushed at least six feet with it's emergency brake on.  It drove fine for the little that I drove it, but according to Tino, there could be bits of metal in the gear box waiting to gradually destroy the transmission and raid our pocket book at a later date.

I'm getting tired just talking about this.  Ugh.