Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Waffle Fry Tragedy on the Freeway

We spent a giant chunk of our yesterday at the pediatric eye guy's office. When The Kid had his seven year well child (oh, I so nearly typed well baby) appointment, he didn't do as well as was expected on the eye exam. I attributed this to his perhaps being distracted because he was taking the exam in the hallway outside the exam rooms and there were kids, parents and nurses tromping past us. But we agreed to make an appointment with the eye guy, mainly because Lefty got glasses in the third grade and I didn't want to send The Kid into the second grade without knowing what was going on with his eyesight.


When I called to make the appointment, they told me to plan on being in the office for two hours. They had to dilate The Kid's eyes and then do an exam. So we planned for two hours and headed out. Well, we sat in the waiting room for a full hour before we were called back and then waiting another hour before the exam was started. In all, we were there for three hours and it was well past our usual lunch time. The Kid's pupils were the size of dinner plates and we were both starving.


We stopped at a well-known chickeny kind of place and headed home to eat our lunch, cue the ominous movie music, on the interstate. As we approached our exit, I was moving into the right hand lane, slowing to about 45 mph, when the car in front of me slammed on it's brakes and stopped. I slammed on our brakes which locked up and with tires squealing we slid forward, about 10 feet. There was enough time for me to think, we're not going to stop and then, when I realized we were going to stop just inches away from the car in front, time enough to check the rearview mirror and think, that guy is not going to be able to stop.


Then, as my giant guardian angel flexed his massive wings, the car behind us stopped too and we were okay. Okay, except that the bag containing our lunch had dumped our waffle fries all over the floor of the backseat and The Kid from exhaustion and hunger and fear began to cry. But after being assured that all was well and that we would salvage as many waffle fries as we could, he brightened and we got home and picked the waffle fries, the ones that were on top and shielded from the floor by their fallen comrades, off the pile and ate them with our chicken, but not before I held on to my child as long as he would let me and said all kinds of prayers of thank you thank you thank you.


And I'm going to avoid the interstate from now on.


Oh, and The Kid's vision is 20/20.




5 comments:

  1. I'm glad you guys are OK...and saved a few fries off the floor.

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  2. Whew! I'm glad it all turned out well.

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  3. The scariest part was a minute or two later when the adrenaline started to subside and I realized how close we came to having something very bad happen.

    I'm glad we're okay and that our little car is not crunched to bits. I'm going to stay on good old 35 mph side streets from now on!

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  4. Oh, i just clenched my teeth reading this. I HATE that feeling.
    If the only damage was the fry-to-the-floor, you're in good shape.

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  5. Oh. My gosh. I am getting so I hate driving. I think you can relate.

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