Welcome to Monday

How's this for a way to start your week: Our bus driver, driving the 7:22 AM 101 route from South Renton Park & Ride (Metro bus #2647) managed to rear-end a small Honda/Acura on the freeway. He was paying attention to another wreck already pulled off on the side of the road rather than focusing on the actual road.

Melissa and I were sitting the in very back on the forward-facing bench seat. Melissa was watching the whole thing unfold and managed to brace herself with her legs. She threw an arm out towards me right before impact. That and the shouts of "SHIT SHIT SHIT" from the passengers up front gave me enough warning to hook my right arm around the pole in front of me. The pole was in the crook of my elbow and my body swung forward, yanking on my arm. Luckily, we were not going 60 MPH at the time, so instead of tearing my arm out of the socket, my instinctive grab for the pole simply kept me from flying. Now, a couple of hours later, it just feels like I've been pitching a couple of innings of baseball.

Looking back on the whole thing, two things stick in my mind: First, how violently everyone on the bus was thrown around when the impact occurred. Several people that were standing went flying. I am truly surprised that only one person was looked at by paramedics (he was standing and hit his chest on the headrest of a seat when he flew forwards). Second, Melissa throwing an arm out in front of me just in the nick of time. Thanks honey! I owe ya one!

I should also mention that Melissa spilled her coffee in the car (before the accident) and we were both 30 minutes late to work. Yeah, this is going to be a long week...