The accident

If you were driving north on GW Parkway Tuesday morning, and got stuck in traffic near the Key Bridge overpass around 7:30 because of an accident in the road, you might have seen a bleary-eyed man in blue at the accident scene, wearing a scarf and black knit cap, standing in the snow on the side of the road, almost completely covered in pink liquid.

Yeah, that was me.

So how does one find one's self in such a situation? As it turns out, thanks to a multitude of factors, including:

The driver who had skidded off the road, and decided it would be a good idea to back up into oncoming traffic.

My wife hitting the brakes and skidding into said driver's car.

The fact that my grape smoothie from the airport Smoothie King was apparently not in an accident-proof container.

Thusly, I was covered in smoothie. The airbags popped in the car, unleashing a nasty burning-plastic smell, which, co-mingled with grape smoothie, will be hard to forget. We got out of the car, and Kimberly thought I was bleeding badly because of the smoothie all over me. Turns out I was fine, but her hand had been badly bruised by the airbag. We put snow on her hand to try to keep some of the swelling down, until an ambulance arrived to take her to the hospital.

I had just arrived on the redeye from Las Vegas, which meant I hadn't had much sleep and my luggage was still in the car. So there I was, covered in pink, carrying both my luggage and the snow shovel Kimberly had used to dig out my car. A vision in ridiculousness.

It's going to take some time to sort through this one. I haven't gotten the insurance logistics hammered down yet, so that will be fun. My car had to be towed away and had some pretty bad wheel/axle damage, so it may be a goner.

And seeing my wife crying and holding out her badly bruised hand seriously broke my heart.

Which is why, anonymous other driver whom I fortunately didn't have to talk to, I'd now like to say: you are a fucking moron, and I hope you burn in fucking hell. You put our lives in danger by driving like an idiot in snowy and icy conditions. When you originally skidded off the road, it should have been a sign to you that the road was icy and dangerous, and would require more reaction time to brake. Instead, you backed up into the flow of traffic. Now I have to help my wife with changing clothes and washing her hair because her hand is so badly injured. If your ignorant ass gets behind the wheel of a car again, it will be too soon.

Good night.