SafeTinspector has completely wrecked his 2007 Ford Focus hatch-back and, apparently, sprained his sternum.
    Driving home from a friend’s house on Thursday evening, I came upon a mid-nineties model Pontiac Sundance stalled out at the corner of 18 Mile Road and Mound Road in the right-most northbound lane of Mound Road.
    As this sort of Pontiac is wont to do, it had been spewing thick clouds of black smoke prior to expiring, so the tail-lights were preternaturally dim and unviewable even with the hazard lights activated. A nice lady in a mini-van therefore didn’t notice the stalled car until it was almost too late for her to stop.
    She did, however, stop in time. The four cars behind her, mine included, didn’t do so well. I actually had no idea there was ANY stoppage in traffic and piled into the last car while driving about 45mph (about 70kmph). As the car I struck was not the car I remembered driving behind, I suspect the car in front of me swerved at the last moment, leaving me to my fate. I’m not ABSOLUTELY certain, as it happened very fast and I was in a slightly confused state after the accident.
    One second I was driving along, moving with traffic, and the next cacophonous second I was looking at the back windows of a Jeep Cherokee which was somehow WAY too close to my smashed windshield. Did I scream in terror? Did I wag my head? No. As the stinky airbag slowly deflated in my lap, burping sulfurously, I yelled–in anger!–to the world at large:
    ”OH! I HAVE BEEN IN A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT!!”
    After making this declaration I pried my door open and staggered out, taking stock of my physical integrity (mental and/or social integrity not withstanding) and determined that I probably had no broken bones. I also noted the number of cars involved in the accident (four!) and the weather (dark, damp, chilly and windy). No one was seriously hurt, although one girl claimed that her shoulder was hurting and had a friend drive her to a doctors office, eschewing the offers of the attending paramedics to ride in their pretty, flashing ambulance.
    I received a citation from the responding police officer (failure to stop within assured clear distance) which can put two points on my driving record and may ruin the current relative affordability of my automobile insurance.
    My brother-in-law, Scott, manages the paint line at a local automobile body shop so I had my wreck taken there where insurance adjusters will examine it on Monday or Tuesday. Chances are that the little Focus will be consigned to the ghoulish predations of a scrap yard attendant and I will be left with no car. No car payment either, but that is a temporary condition as I must have a car for work purposes.
    In the day since the accident I’ve discovered that I have some very colorful bruises upon the upper left side of my chest and on both hips. These are most likely the result of my seat-belt handling me roughly in its single-minded determination to keep me from exiting the car via the windshield–a task it performed quite well. The patch of bruises on my upper chest is lumpy and by this morning had become peppered with little pimples, most of which broke in an tiny orgy of pustulation as I toweled myself off after my shower. As I gazed into the bathroom mirror I noted that the slanted, eye-shaped welts on my hips make it look like my naked pelvis is a large cat with a worm hanging from its furry nose*.
    The bruises are nothing. A little tender, but I’m used to bruising. My sternum, however, is more disquieting. If I sneeze, sniffle, cough or blow my nose I get a painful reminder of the accident. Through judicious probing of my ribs and surrounding musculature I know there is nothing broken, so I assume my sternum is merely sprained or slightly torn. There really is nothing to be done, so I’ve not gone to see a doctor yet.
    I mean, if I went to the doctor’s office the most that would happen is that he’d give me Motrin, which I already have. There’s no medical intervention that can help with this sort of thing, just time and careful restraint. I don’t need to pay for an office visit and a chest X-ray just to be told to do what I’m already doing.
    I’ve asked Scott to take pictures of the wrecked Ford for me, and as soon as I have them, I’ll post them here. In the meantime, rest assured that regardless of the dismal fate of the SafeTmobile the SafeTinspector is still Safe.

* insert “eww!” here