What I did on Tuesday on my way to Boston

I broke a car Tuesday. Actually I broke 3. I hadn't had an accident in over 30 years and regularly make long drives with no problem, but somehow the combination of rain, many miles of stop and go traffic, and a non-operational car radio lulled me to sleep in a bumper-to-bumper jam on I-84 near Danbury, CT. I awoke to see my car slamming into the back of the car in front of me, who in turn hit the car in front of him.

Nobody was hurt, and the other two cars were drivable, though one was in pretty bad shape. Our minivan, which we were driving up to Boston to move my daughter out of her apartment, was not drivable, though I was able to get it onto the shoulder.

My immediate reaction, the printable part at least, was (1) I'm okay and (2) Ronnie is okay. I then ran out to see if the other guys were okay, which they were.

We had to wait for the police to come and then for a tow truck to remove our car. Based on the whole experience I have a few pieces of advice.

1. If you're going to rear-end someone, hit an ex-marine. They are resilient and tolerant of discomfort and whatever you do to them they've seen worse.

2. If not a marine, hit someone who's coming from their mother's funeral. That's what the guy in the front car was doing and he was in a kind of "what else can happen?" kind of mood.

As an aside, I should note that the entire scene was almost weirdly cheerful. Both of the people I'd hit were joking around and not angry or even acting inconvenienced. The police officer was serious and in control but helpful and efficient.

3. If you're going to mess up a car, make it a rental car. Ronnie and I kept talking about how much more annoying it would have been if we'd crashed our own car 150 miles from home.

4. And if you're going to wreck a rental car, do it near an office of the company you rented from. This will save you time and aggravation.

The minivan got loaded onto a flatbed and we got in the cab and off we went. When I asked the driver at first if he could take us to the rental car office (as opposed to his shop) he said no, but the police officer convinced him to take us. Along the way, the driver kept pointing out stuff. The best thing was when he said "You're not the only one having a bad day, that guy up there left his pizza box on top of his car." And sure enough, 3 or 4 cars ahead we saw someone stop and pick one of those pizza delivery cases up off the ground. He also pointed out a crosswalk near a college where he said about 5 people were killed by traffic every year.

Eventually he dropped us at the rental place, took everything out of the van and drove off. We went in the office and they took some information and then put us in an identical minivan, which was great and a little weird. It did strike me as strange that the thought process is "Oh okay, you wrecked the first car we gave you, so here's another one."

In any event, the whole thing set us back a total of 90 minutes. That's it. I know it will cost some money too, but the whole thing could not have been more pleasant, considering what had happened. Kind of crazy but I'm not complaining.