Crash, boom, BANG! (And I'm outta here)

Why do things always happen when you're in the bathroom?  The phone rings.  The doorbell rings.  FedEx or UPS shows up and knocks.  Your kids are yelling at you for something.  It's a perverse version of Murphy's Law or something.  So let me tell you what happened to us yesterday, which will explain why I didn't get anything posted yesterday.

So it starts with J. and I heading to Tractor Supply to pick up some shavings and pellets for the chickens and, when we got back, I had to visit the little girls room while J. took the dogs out.  The next thing I know, the toilet is shaking and the windows are rattling...heck, the whole house was rumbling!  My first thought was "this is it!  the sh*t has officially hit the fan".   Then, realizing that might be a little dramatic, I thought "ok, whose house just exploded?"

So I rush out as fast as I could to find the entire neighborhood at the end of the street looking at a truck parked backwards at the end of our one way street.  Not just A truck...OUR truck.  Then I noticed the broken off telephone pole hanging precariously over our backyard and garage and blocking the street.

The bottom of the pole used to be where the yellow arrow is pointing.  Ooops!

And then I saw our garage.   Our Dodge Ram 2500 diesel with its load of shavings and straw had somehow come out of gear, rolled down the incline that it was parked on in our backyard, took out the side of the garage, turned and careened diagonally across the driveway backwards, completely took out the telephone\power pole and then proceeded to flee for freedom backwards down the street next to our house. 

It looks worse than it is.  It knocked about 2 feet of the sill partially off the foundation.  All of the trim is OK and just needs to be put back on.  Believe it or not, the garage doors still open and close!

Luckily, the tires were swiping down our rock and concrete wall and that caused it to slow and stop.  Otherwise, it would have taken out the neighbor's truck across the street and possibly the kids that were riding bikes.  Ay carumba!

While the garage will have to be resided to fix the broken piece at the bottom and the trim will have to be put back on, it's pretty minor damage.  Luckily, the Kansas City Power and Light guy was really cool and marked the pole as rotten and needing to be replaced (which it was!) so J. is not going to get charged for replacing it.  Had it been new, I think it would have stopped the truck.  They tacked the power lines up into the tree until Monday when they'll be out to put up a new pole.  Unfortunately, then disconnected our Internet and phone as well. :-(

But the truck didn't fare so well.  It sheared off the 17 lb adjustable aluminum trailer hitch that I bought J. for Christmas a couple of years ago and the passenger rear quarter panel is dented and scratched all to heck.  It will be interesting to see what the appraisal is for the damages.  But the truck can be fixed and no one got hurt, so we can count our blessings. 

Poor J.  I'm actually writing this from the lobby of  my hotel in downtown Indianapolis!  I had to leave him to get the cable and phone hooked up today temporarily because I drove here for a training class for work.  He just texted me and apparently the goofballs from Time Warner took out 1/2 our power in the process, so now KCPL is back again to find the break.  J. is again sitting in the dark.

I'll be back tomorrow with some beautiful pictures of downtown Indianapolis for you.  Hope your weekend was uneventful (or at least not as eventful as ours was!)