Welcome to Weird Wednesdays, hosted by It’s OK to be WEIRD!

A weird thing happened on the way home today…  I say weird, because it still isn’t funny, and I’m not sure it ever will be.

Today I went for a little drive to pick up some packages.  Living in Canada, we often have things from the US shipped to a little town just across the border from us.  Then we go across and bring the package up ourselves, thus saving some exorbitant shipping costs and all the brokerage/customs fees that a shipping company would charge us if they shipped it directly to us in Canada.  For now, the only thing it costs me is a couple of bucks per package at the package depot and the gas and time it takes to get there and back.

Well, that was true until today… Today I picked up a souvenir I wasn’t planning on getting, and it’s not a cheap one.

This trip is apparently going to cost me a new windshield, too.

THIS is a tennis-ball-sized spirally crack in my windshield caused by a flying golf-ball-sized rock.

I was passing a semi-truck and this rock flew up and was headed directly for my face. The dot in the center of the swirl is where the rock actually hit, and the swirl is an indication of the speed it was travelling and the force with which it hit the windshield.

Thank God for windshields, or I’d likely be dead right now.

I actually watched the rock fly up.  I was about 1/2 way along the trailer of the truck when out of the corner of my eye I saw something hurtling toward me.  Then, BAM!  I haven’t heard a sound that loud in a very long time.

My right ear is still ringing! (nearly 8 hours later!)

The truck was pulling a refrigerated trailer, so he wasn’t carrying the rock – he just kicked up the rock.  I finished passing him, then pulled over to the side of the road a little ways up the road, and tried to stop shaking and dry my tears enough so I could keep driving.

If it had just been the rock, I don’t think I would have been so shaken up.  But after my crunch a month and 2 days ago, and then almost getting into another accident last week at the same intersection as before (except going the other direction where somebody nearly didn’t yield to me)… this rock thing was a little too much.

Not to mention that the 3rd thing that went through my head I thought about (the 1st being, “Thank you for protecting me, Lord!”, the 2nd being, “THIS? Now? Seriously?”) was “How in the world am I going to come up with the deductible to pay for a new windshield?!”

With the physiotherapy appointments my sons and I have been going to for treatment of our injuries from the rear-ender, we pay upfront and are then reimbursed by our insurance.  We’re at that stage where we’ve paid quite a bit upfront, and are waiting on the reimbursement check(s) to make it through the Canada Post system (I use the word “system” very loosely here) to actually reimburse us.  There usually isn’t a lot of float in our bank account anyway, and it’s all floated out to the physiotherapy clinic… so there’s like NO WAY there’s any buffer at all to pay for this windshield.

One friend said to me today, “When it rains, it pours!”  It kind of feels that way today!

I am thankful that I made it home safely and in one piece, even if I was (am) a bit frazzled and jumpy.  I’m thankful for the examples impressed upon my children – we’re learning first-hand that seat belts, bumpers, and windshields are VERY good things and VERY well designed, and we’re VERY glad when they work the way they are supposed to!  I’m thankful that the windshield did its job.  I’m thankful that my children weren’t with me.  I’m thankful for the packages I picked up (can’t wait to tell you about them – fun things I get to review!).

The spiral in my windshield is a reminder of God’s protection over me.  So, even if it wasn’t what I went to get, and it being there is inconvenient at best, I think I’m even thankful for that weird and unwanted souvenir I brought back.

*** Join me in the weirdness… I KNOW you’ve encountered SOMETHING weird somewhere this week!! Leave me a comment and tell me all about it!! ***