I don't get jokes

We had our first accident ever today :( Ian was driving and we were waiting behind someone turning left at a green light. The person behind us rear-ended us. Sigh. Nobody was hurt at all, thank goodness. Both vehicles got off the road, inspected the damage, and exchanged some information. There are small dents in the bumper where the other vehicle's license plate screw hit the bumper. We don't know what the bumper composition is but we expect that this might be a one-time-only bumper (like helmets) where if the foam is cracked it won't protect us again. We expect that we will have to get the bumper replaced; I'm pretty sure that this will cost more than our insurance deductible and so we'll be contacting the insurance company tomorrow.

It turns out that we didn't get quite enough from the other people. We got their insurance, address, and license plate, but we didn't get the driver's license number that's needed for the reporting forms. Also, the person gave us their name as "C. " with no complete first name. They said that they'd been hit from behind and that pushed them into us - which could have happened, I guess, but the vehicle behind them drove away and none of us got their license plate. There was no damage to their rear bumper, either. The first thing the passenger said was that she'd been in an accident earlier this week. Hmmm. And the driver apparently had had surgery on his forearm recently. It feels a little fishy to me. I guess it doesn't matter.

In Ontario (I'm not sure about the rest of Canada) we don't call police to the scene of a fender-bender like this one. Instead, within 24 hours of the accident, you have to go to a Collision Reporting Centre. There you fill out forms about your vehicle and the other person's information. In an ideal world I suppose both parties would go there at the same time but that didn't happen today. The form does ask for both parties' driver's license number, so we'll know to get that if this ever happens again. Actually, we'll make up a little form to keep in the car - not that we want an accident! But just to be safe.

The centre wasn't busy and so we got everything done in about 20 minutes. When we finished filling out the forms, the police officer checked Ian's driving record. He said that it was perfectly clean except that it was expired because he didn't pay the renewal fee. I froze and started to worry.... but then both of them said that it was a joke. Right. I don't get jokes :)

The officer didn't put a sticker on our car indicating that the damage had already been reported because the damage is hard to see. We do have a police report number, though, which we'll need for the insurance company. I'll call them tomorrow. We will take our car in to our nearby Honda dealership because we don't trust that any other dealership would correctly deal with the hybrid technology. I don't expect this to be an issue with the insurance company. I hope I'm right :)

After all that we headed into Toronto. We were going to the Shoebox Tour show and wanted to go to the big Winners at Yonge and College. It took about 2 hours to get there because the Ex is on and traffic was slooooooow. Both Lakeshore and the Gardiner were jammed. We did get to the Winners in time. It's very big and has a good selection of clothes from a variety of designers and if it had been less busy and we'd had more time I would probably have spent a couple of hours there. I guess it's just as well that I didn't spend that much time there because I didn't buy anything.

We did see the show. It was held on the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health grounds at a theatre there. This is in an area of town that's not all that good. Just to the east it's getting better but this area hasn't finished being revitalized. I was a little uncomfortable in the building for the addicted and mentally ill; I felt very much like we were invading their space.

The show was awesome! The first half had a lot of unicycling which was interesting. The second half, with the Shoebox troupe (see here, too) featuring Jay Gilligan, was fun. It was sort of like we were watching them sit in their living room trying stuff out. It was very arty, in a way. Jay Gilligan played one of a couple of theremins there.... I think I've listened to all of the theremins I need to for the rest of my life :). I like some theremin sounds but I thought it went a little over the top.

At one point in the show, one of the guys had called two people up to the stage - when he yelled some keyword they were to twirl some ribbon things (like rhythm gymnastics). He balanced a chair on his chin and then it fell on him. I was stunned and worried that he'd hurt himself! He fell to the stage and yelled out his keyword. Apparently this was a joke. Yep. I don't get those :)

As you can tell, it's been a long, eventful day :)

One thing I wanted to add to yesterday's discussion on boundaries..... I had set some extremely rigid boundaries relating to someone in my family. My boundaries were much too rigid and were very hurtful, both because I forced them on this person in a mean way (using forceful, arrogant, self-righteous tones of voice that belittled the other person), and because I didn't respect that person enough to let them have boundaries; I forced mine on that person. In doing this, I hurt that person very badly.

I've apologized for this before but I'd like to apologize again now, knowing what I do now about boundaries. I'm very, very sorry that I did this to this person. Yes, I needed boundaries but the way I set them and enforced them was hurtful and mean. I love and cherish this person very much and I accept this person for who they are, no matter how they might change (or not). I don't know how I can make this up to the person, but I will continue to work on learning to set and enforce boundaries in a gentle, loving way.