everybody's working for the weekend?

So, I had a really nutso weekend. It would have been crazy enough with trekking out to the lavender festival in Blanco this weekend; even just going to the Mitch Hedburg tribute show last night at the Capitol City Comedy Club would have been pretty eventful (more so than most weekends around our house). I'll have to write about those later, though, because yesterday I got into a high-speed car crash on one of our elevated state highways.
Yeah, you heard right. I actually was involved in a tire-squealing, car-spinning, facing-oncoming-traffic crash. I was in the right-hand lane of a three-lane road, and just as I made the move to merge into the center lane, a woman in a Honda Civic in the left-hand lane decided she wanted to try to share the middle lane with me. I moved back into the right lane, thinking she'd move back left and we'd be ok, but she jerked her wheel hard left, heading right for the retaining wall at probably 70 miles per hour. Then, she cut the wheel hard right to avoid the retaining wall, and headed right back across two lanes of traffic right for me. I looked out my window, saw her bearing down on my driver's side door, and slammed on the gas to try to avoid her, hoping she'd go behind me. Alas, my little four-banger just didn't have the pickup in the 60-70 mph zone to make it, and the woman hit my car right behind the left rear tire, executing a picture-perfect fishtail maneuver, just like you see on World's Wildest Police Videos. (Not that I watch that... ummm...)
I spun around (I think) at least one and a half times, trying the whole time to steer into the spin like I'm pretty sure they tell you in driver's ed, my life not in fact flashing before my very eyes, and finally came to a stop in the right-hand lane facing oncoming traffic. Luckily, my car was still drivable and I pulled onto the shoulder and called 911.
Oh my god -- it could have been so much worse. It was 3 PM on a Sunday, so there weren't that many other cars around to hit us while we were spinning. Neither of us hit the retaining wall, and the damage on both of our cars appears pretty superficial. If there had been a semi on that road, or if we had hit the retaining wall, this could have been an entirely different ending.
I feel like I should go volunteer or something.
Anyway, I'm not even all that sore today -- a little cramped, but nothing serious. I was shaking for hours after I got home yesterday, though. Now it's just trying to deal with the insurance and all that -- trying to get Farmer's to accept liability. My agent told me that this sounds like she's liable, as long as the other lady's story jibes with mine. Of course, when we were standing around on the highway yesterdy waiting for the police to show up so we could turn my car around (thanks, APD -- you guys were terrific) the woman told me that she had no idea what had happened and she thought she hit the wall... so lord knows what she told her insurance company. My car's at the body shop, because even though the mechanic told Mr. Pants that it's driveable, the wheel well looks a little too close to the tire for me to feel comfortable taking it through rush hour traffic. Mr. Covert Body Shop Mechanic (he'll have to have a nickname) told Mr. Pants that the damage looks pretty minor, and that they should be able to just pop the bumper back out and balance the tires, and I'll be good to go. I hope they're right and that I don't have to pay for it.
I'll try to go by there tomorrow during lunch to take pics of the damage... maybe I can post them here. You won't believe how crazy the accident actually was when you see the tiny scratch on my car, though. It looks like I got hit in a parking lot at very low speeds.
That's quite enough for now... reliving the accident has made me all nervous to go get in Mr. Pants' car to go grab lunch. I would walk to get something, but it's 97 degrees outside today.
Deep breaths... slow down adrenaline...
bye!