Enjoy and have a laugh along the way as long as it lasts!

I thought I'll whip up a little article on a little something something that happened to me yesterday as long as the impression is still fresh...

Yesterday my wife and I went on our regular little trip from the little village we live in to Bad Kreuznach where we usually go for a little walk with the dogs in the wonderful Salinental valley – Europe’s largest open-air inhalatorium. I'm in the preparations for a little article about this place right now btw.

It was a rainy day, not much of a pouring more like a light drizzle. Traffic was pretty packed since we got into the daily home going traffic around Bad Kreuznach.

But that usually doesn't bother me much it's even part of my afternoon wind down process.

As we were cruising along one of the beltways around Bad Kreuznach with about 35 mph a car from the oncoming turning lane drove right in front of our car, taking my right away, and we crashed.

It all happened so fast that I could only voice a part of "shit..." and hit the brake pedal while the cars had already touched. So it was an undelayed impact at about 35 mph.

The force of the impact hurled the "right away taker" car around and to the left side of the road. Our car came to an halt a few yards behind the impact zone on the right side of the road on the grass bank.

I checked on my wife who was in pain, nothing serious but the to expect safety belt contusion, a little back, neck, knee and head pain from getting punched in the face by the airbags.

For me it was almost the same but I also had a little dizziness on top of feeling beat up badly.

So I urged my wife to get out of the car quickly because I wasn't sure if that burned smell and a little smoke we could see in the car was just from the frontal airbags going off or something was actually burning.

My wife's passenger door opened fine but my door was a little jammed from the impact so I had to use a lot of brute force to get it open.

When I got out of the car and looked at the road I thought to myself this gives the impression of something might have exploded right there... Then I looked over to the other involved car and saw a younger woman getting out of the vehicles driver side, opening the rear door and getting our a little child, I guess 2-3 years old.

No crying or whining and both walked towards another car that had come to a halt not far away from her busted VM wagon. They both seemed to be ok.

We then went to the back of the car to check on our dogs and thankfully, even though the dog travel boxes we use in the back of our wagon to safely transport our doggos were busted a little, both doggos seemed to be Ok. A little shocked, like we all were but Ok.

Some other commuters had called rescue services meanwhile and shortly after that some firefighters showed up and a little after that the first ambulance came. In total they came with three ambulances and three emergency physicians.

At last the police showed up and while the firefighters cleaned the road from the impact debris the police directed the traffic around the accident scene. Really quickly this accident had lead to big traffic jams in/from all directions.

Because I just couldn't shake my dizziness I agreed to be taken to a nearby hospital. So they put me on a stretcher and off we went.

My wife, she's a tough cookie, refused to be taken to the hospital because the only thing they could offer in terms of taking care of the dogs was to bring them to a nearby animal shelter. So the cops drove her and the dogs to nearby Bad Kreuznach where she tried to flag down a cab to drive home with the dogs. A Lady that drove by her and probably sensed my wife's distress because a cab drove right by but didn't stop, slowed down, stopped and offered help. She ended up taking my wife and the dogs to our house! She even tried to refuse some cash that my wife offered because she said she was just happy that she could help! Wonderful Lady! My wife insisted that she should take a few Euros which she after some debate did. She thanked her again and was happy to be safely at home with our dogs.

Meanwhile a Md had checked me and they made some x-rays of my back, the rib cage and my right hip that hurt intensively but my dizziness had vanished and I didn't show any sign of a concussion either so, after it was clear that no bones were fractured I refused to stay. I had to sign a waiver that I'm leaving the hospital against medical advice at own risk blablabla but I was out of there as quick as possible to go home to check my wife and our doggos.

We're going to our family doctor in the morning just to be sure but it seems that besides a few contusions and bruises nothing serious had happened to us or the dogs.

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Jeez... you might think why is he writing all this it's just a little fender bender, nothing more, and you are right!

It really wasn't much more than that... besides all the paperwork and stuff with the car insurances, getting the old car fixed or if it's totaled, which I assume it is, getting a new one and so on nothing really "news worthy".

But for one to me it was quite an absurd adventure!

This again made me reflect on chaos, our illusions of control and order, being grateful, so to say enjoying the ride as long as it lasts, because in the blink of an eye or even faster things in our lives can be turned upside down or even worse... it can be over at any time for anyone of us!

So the note to myself, that I virtually wrote, wasn't new, wasn't grounded in any kind of big philosophical foundation, wasn't finessed in any way but still has substance to me...

Enjoy the ride! Every now and then, maybe a little more often, look around, look at the life around you, be thankful, be grateful and most importantly don't forget to laugh enough along the way also about yourself!

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I hope I haven't bored you too much with this post her but I really would love to hear/read what you think!

Have you had similar experiences and what is your overarching conclusion or motto to handle a little chaos now and then?

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