Hunky Husband's exciting day

Back Story: Hunky Husband and I met Elder Brother in Great Bend KS on Thursday. EB had driven down from his home in Colorado the day before. The expectations were that EB would do a bit of solo birding Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, we would all lunch together, then do some group birding Thursday afternoon and (on our way back home to Derby) Friday morning. Friday evening, the whole Wichita-area family was to gather at our home before embarking on eating dinner out. Saturday morning, it was planned that EB, HH, and I would do a last spate of birding down near Arkansas City, Kansas. (Need I remind you that EB is an avid bird watcher, and has been since about 1952?)

Thursday Afternoon: HH and I met EB, as planned, and did some birding during the afternoon. While HH took his afternoon siesta, EB and I went to get EB a snack. We returned to EB's motel room to chat until HH awoke in HH's and my room, next door. We hadn't been settled for long when HH knocked on the door. HH then regaled us with the following tale.

In EB's and my absence, HH had awakened and attempted to contact us by calling my cell phone. Of course, not wishing to carry a charger and/or extra battery with me, I had left home with a freshly-charged battery and my phone turned off. Everyone knows that, when HH and I are on travel, we can be contacted by calling HIS cell phone - which is patched through his car's system. My cell phone was in the same room from which HH was attempting to contact me.

Failing to reach me, HH chose not to leave a message. Somehow, in closing down, he managed to accidentally dial 9-1-1. He was quite shocked when a woman asked him about his "emergency". HH assured her that he was not reporting an emergency and that he had no idea how he had made the contact. The dispatcher, after gathering HH's name and location, told him that by the local law enforcement office's protocol, a police officer would be dispatched to the motel. In a couple of minutes, the officer arrived at the motel and tapped on the door. When HH opened the door, the officer called him "Louis". HH identified himself and chatted with the officer enough to assure the officer that HH was not under duress from a third party. HH was somewhat taken aback and puzzled when the officer assured him that such occurrences (accidental 9-1-1 calls) from people staying at motels was not rare. Huh? Does that make sense to anyone? Not to me.

Thursday Evening: At dinner, HH told EB and me that if EB would make sure I got home, HH would go ahead and drive home that night. We would miss him; but, we understood that HH had other things to do than to put up with brother-sister interchanges and bird watching. An hour later, on bidding HH adieu, I turned on my cell phone (a fortuitous action!)

Oh, Deer!: At about 9:45pm, while EB and I were "arguing" politics (he, being a staunch Libertarian who plans to leave 30% of his estate to that political party, and I being a centrist with no political party affiliation), my cell phone rang. The conversation that ensued between HH and me was a bit disjointed for two reasons: 1) he was pretty shook up and 2) he was also conversing with a sheriff's deputy officer. It seems that HH had hit a deer, that his car was being towed, and that HH was without means of transportation. I told him to give EB and me a few minutes to assess the options and that I would call HH back.

I immediately called the front desk to enquire if there was a car rental agency in town that would still be open for business. "Oh, no! We don't have anything like that." Explaining the situation to her, I asked if she had other suggestions. "Well, we could send a taxi to get him - tomorrow morning!"

I asked EB if he was willing to abort his stay in Great Bend in order for us to check out of our motel rooms, go pick up HH, and go to our home in Derby. He was. The sheriff's deputy officer dropped HH at a nearby Walmart at which place we met him about an hour later. Fortunately, our drive home was uneventful.

Early Saturday: While HH went for his morning run, I made calls to establish where we needed to go in order to 1) unload HH's belongings from his wounded car and 2) pick up the police report on the accident - to provide to the insurance company. In order to access HH's car at the lot in Galva KS (a few miles east of McPherson), to which it had been towed, HH (as the owner) needed to have 1) current proof of insurance, 2) current auto registration, and 3) current driver's license. Ye gads! I said, "But the proof of insurance and the auto registration are in the glove compartment of his car!" She recommended that, in order to avoid our long drive's being for naught, we should obtain another copy of the documents to bring with us. From experience, she knew that one's documents were not always where they were expected to be.

I called the Sedgwick County Tag Office and was told that, indeed, HH could have a copy of his registration printed out at our Derby branch of the Tag Office, by paying one dollar.

Saturday Morning & Afternoon: By the time HH returned from running, EB had arisen and driven out to return to the Great Bend area to complete his birding in that area. HH asked to borrow my car. Nope! I would drive him. He was not happy with that, but I stuck to my guns.

We hit the Tag Office where I waited in the car only a few minutes while HH paid his $1 and obtained the required document. He had told me that our next stop would be the Lincoln dealership in Wichita, his having thoughts of possibly buying a new car. Having obtained the registration printout, he decided to make the insurance office our next stop - at which I waited in the car about 45 minutes. Then, we headed to McPherson/Galva to empty his personal items (and pick up his car tag) from his car and drop by the sheriff's office.

When HH emerged from the sheriff's office, I handed him the car "key", and asked him to drive us home. Once we were on the interstate highway, I started coaching him on the use of my car's augmented cruise control system, sound system, and such. Only after he had spent some miles and minutes swearing and venting in frustration at trying to hit the right controls in the right way to get something to happen with my car did I let him know why I had driven him on his rounds that morning: I didn't want him trying to cope with learning the controls in my car while still trying to figure out how to cope with the aftermath of his accident. I told him, "I didn't think I could live through that." He responded, "You were probably right."

Saturday Evening: The whole clan gathered. Having had only three hours' sleep the previous night (2am-5am), having dealt with being around both HH and EB for a stretch of time (one or the other is OK - both? Oh, my!), and dealing with HH's accident, I had done exactly nothing in preparation. Besides, the plan had been for us to go to a local restaurant (which one, indeterminant) for our evening meal. We decided that it would be less stressful for us to eat in. HH and Dudette volunteered to pick up the food, Wonderful GrandDaughter and Rachie polled the delegates to determine and phone in the food order, WichiDude and EB volunteered to insert four feet (two leaves) into the dining table, I fetched three extra chairs from the breakfast room to accommodate our nine diners, and EB and I spread the table cloths, napkins, and dinner ware around the table. It all worked out beautifully.

Expressing shocked dismay that I had nothing on hand to serve as dessert, other than the cookies in the cookie jar, Dudette and HH made another foray to fetch three kinds of ice cream (mint chocolate chip and cappuccino chocolate chunk from Braums, and vanilla soft serve from Dairy Queen) to cap off the meal. Following dessert, we reassembled the table in its shortest configuration and we four women played Mexican Railroad until it was time for the local area family to depart.

Remainder:  Before dinner, HH regaled the family with tales of his wild encounter with the deer. That is covered in the next posting.

Comments

[Ingineer66]

That sounds like a lot of excitement. Glad that the only injury was to the car and deer.

[bogie]

You were probably right in driving at first - good thinking on your part!

Only problem I have is that the Deputy dropped an elderly gentleman off at a Walmart? Seriously? No one stayed with him to make sure he was taken care of? Course I don't know the whole story so maybe HH insisted. I mean Walmart, as far as a dropping off place is not a bad choice, I just question leaving him alone after an accident. They don't know if he could have delayed reaction while waiting for you and EB to show up. A well, it all turned out fairly well, so I'm just playing a game of what-ifs in my mind.

[Cop Car]

Ingineer--Thanks for the good wishes. HH and I have always taken large events/emergencies well: it's the small things that upset us! Our natural response to emergencies has been particularly honed beyond our natural bent by our work on disaster responses.

Bogie--I appreciate your thinking. It was all situational. (See reply to Ingineer.) I'm sure that, once your dad told the officer that EB and I would be picking him up at the 24/7 Walmart (which we had established in a phone call), the officer had no reason for further concern and the officers were working a worse wreck with the second car that hit the deer.. (Besides, EB and I had a bit over an hour's drive to get to WalMart and I'm sure your dad had no desire to wait in jail--lol!) Your dad could always have made another 9-1-1 call.

The Walmart employees actually "looked after" HH. They gave him a couple of bags to put the things he was carrying into, directed him to a restroom, etc. Small town America takes care of everyone! You have always been one to take care of strangers, yourself.

P.S. When I was 18, it took me a week or two to react to a traumatic event, at which time I went into mild shock. Of course, no one could have been expected to keep me under observation for that long!