10/26/2011 Just when I thought it was going to be smooth sailing, the water got rough and salty again.

I had my mom over to help me put up curtains, and before we could get open the package to the double rod set, troubled daughter called me—totally hysterical.

She had been in another accident.

She was on her way somewhere on the freeway, and the driver in front of her slammed on their brakes, causing my daughter to slam on hers. Of course, she crashed into that car and wrecked her car. My mom and I got to the scene, which was about 15 minutes away, about 30 minutes before the highway patrol did. Luckily for my daughter, an off-duty federal agent happened to be driving by and stopped so he could flash his lights and divert traffic around her car. The other driver had moved their car about half a mile up the road for some reason—not sure, maybe to get out of the way of moving cars, maybe because they started to flee the scene and their car died.

While we waited, I gave my daughter a few bags—one for garbage, one for stuff to take home. She was crouching and throwing certain things in her purse, too. While she HAD recently cleaned her car, there were obviously some untoward things in there that perhaps she didn’t want any officer—or my mother or me to see. My mother made the mistake of trying to help her clean the car. Bad idea. I once had a two-day fight with my daughter because I did that and found a 12-pack of Miller Lite (that of course was NOT hers).

Finally, an officer showed up and had to make sense of the whole thing. He took statements, moved my daughter’s car out of the way, and assessed the situation. Meaning: my daughter got cited, which we expected since she was the slammer, not the slammee. Thank heavens she was not: high, drunk, tired, in gangster attire, pissed off, texting, doing her makeup, or flirting with the person in the next car. It was just a cut-and-dry accident that my insurance will cover (with a $500 deductible, of course).

As we waited, my daughter complained of a sore knee, and I did notice that she was limping and it was swelling up. The officer called the fire department to send out a unit to look at her. They came almost immediately—a wonderful and kind crew of people—and checked her out. To be on the safe side, they decided to take her to a nearby hospital, and proceeded to strap her to a spine board with a neck brace and restraints from head to toe. It was surreal to see her like that—nightmarish, actually. Not how you want to see your child.

My mom and I met her at the hospital, and when we got to her room, she had been in the restrained position for almost 20 minutes and was coming unglued. As soon as she saw me, she started to panic and cry. I ran to the desk of nurses and doctors and asked if I could please loosen the thing, but they said she had to stay put. She really started to panic so I asked again and a really nice younger nurse, “Nurse Nicole,” came to the rescue and was able to calm her until the physician’s assistant came in and cut off the Velcro straps. She told her the story of her accident a year ago that resulted in her breaking her neck but not even being aware of it until a year later. I gratefully saw my daughter’s blood pressure and pulse return to normal on the monitor.

After some snacks, an X-ray of her knee, and some Vicodin, we were free to go home. My daughter was asleep by the time we left the parking lot. She’s facing a couple of days of great soreness and we’re facing her grumpiness, but she’s okay, alive, not broken and nothing else matters. Not the car, not the money, not even the whys, hows, and whatnots.