Rush hour was over, but things were still a little slow exiting from the 202 to the 51, so there I sat, waiting for the cars ahead of me to plod forward. My morning stupor was so intense that it didn’t occur to me to be scared when I heard the screeching tires behind me. They must have gone for some 2 or 3 seconds before the THUNK.

Some Mexican in his little pickup forgot that traffic could come to a dead stop there, and had been going too fast for the trailer he was pulling. He had no insurance, of course. Neither of us was hurt, and my car was undamaged except for a few flecks of paint on the bumper, but of course there can be stuff you can’t see. I hesitated a moment, then called 911 just to cover my ass. “You’re calling the police?” he said, trying to sound unconcerned. I felt bad for him, and wondered if I wasn’t being paranoid, but I wasn’t about to let my insurance company screw me later because I didn’t file a police report.

We waited in our respective cars for about 15 minutes for a patrol car to show up, then another 15 while the officer fiddled about in his cruiser. Turned out the reason things were taking so long was that this guy had a warrant on him, and they were gonna haul him to jail.

Meh. Ordinarily I’d have said it served him right for driving without insurance. I dunno. Right now I just wish the whole damn thing hadn’t happened.