Mother Nature's Sense of Humor

When J and I got married, we took a cross country trip for our honeymoon.  Both of our cars were typical college student cars - good for getting around town, but definitely not suitable (or safe perhaps) for making a long road trip.  J ended up buying a new car a month before we got married.  He is one of those engineer types, and true to form, he researched the hell out of the available cars, considered his options, visited dealers, and agonized at length before pulling the trigger on a new sedan that eventually earned the name "Bender."  For many  years, that car was his Baby - god forbid anything damage that car. 

The car had a bit of an inauspicious beginning, encountering a fender bender  in a vineyard parking lot in Northern California a little over a month after he bought it.  That small fender bender sent him into a black funk for the next few days, even though there was really only a minor scratch and the dent popped right back out.  It was not a fun incident.

Fast forward a couple of years.  We'd moved to Houston, but always came home over Christmas to be with family.  I'm not sure what year it was, maybe 2000?, but we drove into LR late on the night an ice storm was hitting the area.  We barely made it to my family's house before the worst of it hit; I think the car was skating on the sleet as we finally reached our destination.  When we pulled up to the house, J made a point to look around and park where there was nothing directly over the car that could damage it, should things start falling with the weight of the ice that was coming.  My house had a large, old tree in the front yard, and he avoided that thing at all costs.  He ended up parking slightly uphill in the driveway, away from the tree, which was to his left, and just in front of a power line strung along our street.

Despite being exhausted from the drive, I couldn't sleep that night.  When I was growing up, my family was a little strange in this area - it didn't matter what time you got up at night, there was usually someone prowling around getting a snack, drinking a coke, watching tv, or just trying to figure out a way to go back to sleep.  If no one was actually awake right then, there was usually evidence that someone had been up just a few minutes before (a still cold soda, the remains of nachos on a plate that was still warm, etc.)  We were all nocturnal and none of us had a normal sleep schedule.  So that night, when I gave up about 2am and went upstairs to get on the computer, my dad was awake and reading.  We sat in his office, listening to the ice coming down and the tree branches falling.  The light outside had a strange, orangey glow to it, and every so often you could see the flash of transformers blowing around the city.  It was just a nasty night. 

Around 2:30, we both heard a loud "crash" from the front yard, followed by a few more bangs and what could only be described as a "bonk."  From my dad's window, you couldn't see exactly what had happened, but it was obvious that the street light in the front yard had gone out.  Ominous.

As we made our way outside, we realized that the big tree in the front yard had indeed lost a large limb, as we expected might happen.  We also would expect any limbs that fell to land on the power line running parallel with the street; the line was threaded through some of the branches, after all.  What we didn't expect is that, rather than snapping the power line, the force of the limb falling actually pulled the light pole over.  And instead of falling parallel with the street and missing J's car, the pole fell slightly uphill, into our driveway, and directly onto his car, leaving several good sized dents and I think a passenger side door that was unable to open.  The night suddenly felt about 20 degrees colder than it had previously.

J slept through the whole thing, but I didn't really sleep the rest of that night.  I don't think I can do justice to the torrent of words that were spoken the next morning when he saw the damage; despite all his planning and forethought, despite all his care, mother nature totally jumped up (or fell over) and bit him in the ass.  I have to say that the whole things was kinda funny at the same time as being irritating, but most of all?  I was totally relieved that I had nothing to do with it.  'Cause that would just have not gone well AT ALL.