Rainbows are expensive these days.

In case you haven't heard yet...

I got rear-ended as part of a 4-car accident driving home today just a little way up the road from the LAST time my sister and I were rear-ended, and it was the fault of one young driver not paying attention.

Here I am driving home, it starts raining, I slow down (of course, because I usually try to be as safe as I can) and am just minding my own business when I see a GORGEOUS OMG WOW LOOK AT THAT RAINBOW! stretching across town in front of me. I considered seeing if my camera would be able to start up in time (it's an old digital) but I couldn't get it out of my bag at the red light, so I left it alone - "I know better than to fiddle with things in the car while I'm driving," I told myself. Apparently a lot of other drivers were looking at the sky too, because traffic slowed down a lot ahead of me at one of the lights. Things came to a stop pretty quickly and so did I (as carefully as I could though, considering there was someone behind me and I really didn't want to stop so fast that she hit me or slid on the damp road), the nice lady behind me stopped ok, and I thought I was safe, but something didn't quite feel right for a half-second... and the guy behind her? THUDSQUEALCRUNCH. He hit her, she slammed into me and ruined the rear end of my car, I slid forward and tapped the guy ahead of me. If I hadn't been stomping the brakes, his car probably would've been nudged quite a bit harder.

Needless to say, a lot of very loud, unhappy words escaped my mouth at this point...

So when everyone has pulled over, the police are notified and everything's checked out, total damage: Car #1 (guy in front of me) has maybe some red paint on his rear bumper, if that. I (#2 in line) have no trunk left. The crumple zone on a Civic does its job, but when its job is done there's not really anything pretty left on the rear end. My tail lights are non-functional (one shattered and fell out completely) and my trunk is shorter by several inches. The lady in the SUV behind me (#3) had a bit of damage to her grille/radiator, and some crumpling in the back but nothing a body shop couldn't flatten out, and the last guy (#4 and the cause of our accident) had a bit of an accordion for a hood - his car got towed by the friendly AAA people who just happened to be driving by and thought they might offer a hand (I sure hope they don't charge him too much for the help!). I didn't see the full damage to his SUV but I know his airbags went off and he hit his head on something and was bleeding a bit at the temple - they took him away to the hospital.

Does this mean rainbows aren't good luck after all?

So our car and my only source of transportation currently is totaled (or probably totaled, we're waiting for the insurance company to decide on that) and I have to get to my student teaching placement still... for the next few weeks I can probably carpool with someone else who is there, but halfway through the semester I am switching placements to somewhere pretty far away and I don't think I'll be able to have someone drive me up and back every weekend. This pretty much ruins any plans I had of seeing my fiance during that 8-week placement unless we can find a replacement car and since neither of us is working right now I don't think we can even lease one (not that we could afford that anyway). This is really depressing to me and I'm really upset about not being able to finish my student teaching placement without relying on other people - and especially about not having any freedom to come and go at my second placement (an environmental science center in the middle of nowhere) without pre-arranging rides with other people. There isn't anyone else from my class going there this semester so getting there at all is going to be a challenge. :/

But at least I got to see a rainbow. *sigh*