Sounds like the start of a bad joke, right? The kind you hear at a cocktail party that causes you to immediately begin scanning the room and formulating an exit plan?
This is not a joke. This, our friends, was one of many strange aspects of the scene that was our first family car accident. Let’s back up.
It was approximately 1994. We had been living in the dusty city of Ridgecrest, California for about one year, following a brief stint in Boise, Idaho. Kara, age 10, had a school project that required her to dress as Sacagawea for the day. For the unfamiliar, Sacagawea belonged to the Lemhi Shoshone tribe; in circa 1804, she joined the expedition of Lewis and Clark, helping connect them with various Native Americans along the way. At the time of the expedition, Sacagawea was pregnant and eventually gave birth to a child, so depictions often involve her carrying a baby on her back. This scene has always particularly appealed to our mother, a western native and labor and delivery nurse. So as part of Kara’s dressing up, not only did our mom create the Native American regalia, she added to it a sack of sorts for a baby to be carried on Kara’s back.
After a long school day of carrying the weight of a faux child, Kara convinced her mom to take a trip with her sisters to McDonald’s for a coke and a couple of chicken nuggets. (Our brother had the good fortune this day of remaining at his daycare, Leaping Lizards, where incidentally they used to feed chicken nuggets to the chickens. Oooof.)
The group of our mom and us three girls piled into our two-toned Ford Aerostar and began the journey. Bethany won the all important battle to ride shotgun that day. Kara and our youngest sister, Jenny, found themselves in the back seat which was always second fiddle but also meant more freedom to do things like “forget” to put on a middle seatbelt that was always such a pain and frequently got stuck in the roll up apparatus if not wound up just so, similar to a yo-yo.
Meanwhile, across town, a man in his mid-fifties decided it was the perfect time to clean his hand gun. Being the pro (amateur) that he was, he determined there was no need to empty the gun’s ammunition. So there he sat, cleaning a loaded gun when—shockingly—the gun fired, placing a bullet right in his hand. For reasons unknown to us, instead of calling 911, the man (whom we shall hereafter refer to as “shooter”) and his wife got into their vehicle and headed to the hospital. Of course, this was in a hurried and panicked state.
And then our paths collided. Literally.
Our mom was navigating the busiest road in our little town, attempting a left turn into the parking lot housing those Golden Arches. Traffic was backed up. As it started to clear, the two cars in the opposite lanes held still for us to pass through. Mom was hesitant, but one of them waved her through, as if to say “don’t worry- all is clear for you!”
The only problem that no one could have predicted was that shooter’s wife had decided to drive in the bike lane given the traffic jam, creating her very own third lane. As we turned left, she plowed into our minivan with the forceful speed of a frantic spouse trying to save her husband’s life.
Because Kara had “forgotten” to wear her seatbelt and was on the side of the van that was t-boned, she was thrown around quite a bit. Luckily for her, the only bullet that wasn’t dodged that particular day was shooter’s. Everyone involved in the accident, including Kara, was relatively unskathed and shooter was rushed to the hospital by a qualified professional.
Kara and Bethany’s mother stayed at the scene and instructed the girls to take their younger sister with them into the bank adjacent to Mickie D’s. They were to call their father and report that everyone was okay, but that they had been T-boned. As the girls wandered into the U.S. Bank Branch, wondering if their mother would come through on the fast food plan, the bank employees stared at the scene before their eyes. Kara, the eldest, in a Sacagawea costume, with two younger females trailing behind her, asked to borrow a phone.
Unfortunately, our Dad, a mining engineer, was out deep in the mine in an area that certainly didn’t have cell phone reception, not that he had a cell phone in 1994. Our mother eventually called the main office of the mine, and reached a helpful (or, poor sap of a) man named Ken. Ken was also unable to locate Dad, so Ken arrived to McDonald’s and gave the four of us a ride home.
Now that the family vehicle was out of commission for the foreseeable future, our mother was presented with, apparently, the only other viable option: toting four children around in a 1982 Ford Escort that our parents had owned for 12 years and we recall as having zero air conditioning. (Upon further discussion with our mother Paula, we learned that our parents actually paid to have A/C installed, but it “always messed up.”) None of us enjoyed this arrangement and it went on for what felt like months in the hot desert sun. Our last recollection of transportation in said vehicle was to the Ridgecrest police department to receive the official report of who was to blame for the accident. Our mother could hardly contain herself as she ripped open the white envelope in the parking lot and scanned the document, her four little duckling children looking on.
“Oh, thank God, it’s her. Okay! Let’s get some Wienerschnitzel.”
Yes, folks, shooter’s wife was deemed at fault and we each celebrated with a five pack of mini fried corn dogs dipped in mustard that day. But the real fault seemed to have laid in the wounded hand(s) of the man cleaning a loaded gun. Safety first, our dad always said. Safety first.
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BWAHA!! OMG, that was crazy!! And yes, it totally sounded like there was a joke in there with that headline. LOL