Before you freak out and start checking local hospitals to find out where to send flowers, I’m perfectly fine and it wasn’t as serious as it sounds. Let me just state for the record that people drive way too fast and/or recklessly in our neighborhood, especially in front of the school.

I had just collected Monkey from school and we were walking back to the car when one of his friends hollered at him and asked us to follow him to his house, so I answered back that we had to go to the store. We had just reached the front of the car and I was trying to get Monkey to his door safely (thank goodness I was walking to the outside) when something bumped into my elbow. I thought somebody was trying to get my attention, turned out to be the driver’s side mirror of a car! He got my attention alright, but apparently I didn’t get his. He kept driving.

I am extraordinarily lucky that it was not more serious. It didn’t really hurt that much, just made my arm felt like I’d bumped my funny bone, hard. Well, my arm felt funny and I was trying to shake it off and making a pained face when Mr. Prairie asked my why I hadn’t screamed when the guy hit me. I’ll tell you why, because being hit by a car is just such a stunning experience that I was shocked into silence. Even more shocking, the guy just kept driving. Mr. Prairie said he did slow down a bit, but since I wasn’t lying in a bloody, mangle heap in the road, he just kept driving.

Then Mr. Prairie asks me, “Is it that serious?” And I answered, “No, it just feels like when you bump your elbow really hard, because, you know, A CAR HIT ME!” And he just kept driving. If I’d had the foresight to plan for the day when I was bumped by a car,  I would’ve banged on the car Midnight Cowboy-style and yelled, “I’m walkin’ here!” But alas, who plans to be HIT BY A CAR?!

Monkey, who was holding my other hand when the guy hit me with his car, and did I mention, just kept driving, seemed to be unaffected. We proceeded to the grocery store and got our shopping done. (One child per cart, trust me on this one!) When we were done and loading up the Prairie Family Truckster, Monkey spotted a semi  backing up to the store’s loading dock. It was backing up and beeping and he panicked. He was sure the truck would hit us all (it was quite a ways away), so he hurled himself out of the cart and demanded that we all get in the car. RIGHT NOW!!!!

Even though I wasn’t really hurt, he had just seen his mama get hit by a car. He’s way more sensitive than he lets on. Monkey did not calm down until I was safely in the car.

By the way, I plan to lead every conversation with, “I got hit by a car,” at least for a couple of days.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 at 8:32 pm and is filed under In front of the neighbors, On the road. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.