Crisis Averted

Friday is my nephew's 6th birthday, and I volunteered to make the cupcakes. I saw these that a friend had made, and thought they were so cute I'm going to try my hand at them. I know the kids will pleased if they turn out.

Anyway, after browsing supplies at Wal-Mart, I thought I'd run up to Michael's just to see what else might be available. We were leaving home around 2:30, so traffic was sure to be a pain. Michael's is up in Avon so I made my way up Raceway Road. It is narrow and, at that time of day, the intersections are all bottle-necked.

The straight-only lane was backing up behind the left-turn lane (I needed to turn) so I slowly followed the car ahead of me as we made our way around and past the cars in the middle (straight) lane. I really was not watching my right side very carefully and as I proceeded, my mirror clipped the mirror of another vehicle.

I heard the noise and did not immediately realize what had happened, but then deduced it must have been my mirror. I was already stuck in the turn lane and past the last entrance to the nearby parking lot. The other car, or rather giant SUV, was stuck in the straight lane, so we couldn't even have made it into the same place. I immediately formulated a plan in my mind to go ahead and turn once the light changed and them turn right into the shops across the street, hoping the other driver would see me and turn into it as well after they crossed the intersection.

Well, apparently the other driver was not interested in waiting for the light. He (I soon found out it was a he) started honking repeatedly. As I was not about to get out in the middle of traffic with my three children sitting in the van, I really didn't know what to do. Well, I guess my lack of response was not to his satisfaction. I then heard some guy start yelling, "Hey!". I began trying to see where he was (all this time and the light had still not changed; it's no wonder traffic was all backed up!), and then heard knocking on one of the windows.

So I rolled down the passenger window. I still could not actually see him, so I don't know where he was knocking, or why on earth he would have knocked on one of the back windows. He finally showed up at the passenger window and demanded to know if I was aware that I had hit his mirror. I was aware and quite embarrassed and sorry about it. I apologized to him sincerely and inquired as to whether there was any damage that he could see and whether we needed to exchange any info. Fortunately, my mirror collapsed, so he could see none, he said; he promptly returned to his vehicle.

And that was that. In a couple moments the light turned and I watched as he drove through the intersection, apparently not feeling a need to gather any more information from me. Which I was thankful for. I do not handle those situations very well. I probably would've cried and offered to write him a check on the spot just to get it over with.

The rest of our trip was very uneventful. Which is a relief because I was quite worked up over this little near-incident. I definitely couldn't have taken anything else.