Two words: car accident.

UGH.

Minor, but any form of a car accident has a ripple effect. It puts these tiny but significant wrinkles in your day.

Nick was at a complicated 4 or 5 way stop, turned into the intersection while someone decided to pause and keep going into the intersection, part of her brain erasing one important fact: THERE’S ANOTHER HUMAN BEING IN THE INTERSECTION.

A frontal collision, the bumper ripped off, some damage that left her car scratched and ours not drivable. The most important thing, obviously, is that Nick is fine and the only thing affected was his anxiety over paper work, car rental, insurance, and my need to get to work that morning but our 1-car situation made that slightly impossible.

UGH.

Nick is fantastic in high stress situations. He claims it’s very Borchers of him, and I must agree. When the pressure is on, the shields and blinders come up so he only sees his goal, strategy, and the most direct access to resolving the issue. My brain, in times of crisis, assesses the likelihood of survival and then ponders how precious life is, how short and fleeting our dreams are…You can see the difference.

What I think is hilarious is we were just in Russia this weekend when Kay and Kelly (Nick’s mom and sister) were out running errands when the car overheated. Fortunately but against Kay’s will, they pulled off the road to make sure the car didn’t explode or anything like that.

They call Ron (Nick’s Dad).

According to Kelly and Kay, it was 2:40pm when they called and Ron said he could leave in about 20 minutes. According to Kelly and Kay, they sighed and complained to one another as to why he couldn’t leave right then and there. According to Kelly and Kay, he should just come to their rescue whenever a crisis occurs.

Ron comes to the rescue, of course.

We all laugh at the expectations in the story and I giggle at some of the similarities I see in Nick whenever a crisis occurs.

While Nick was the one in the accident, he called to let me know, ask me to find the location of the closest Enterprise, but then took care of all of the details after that. I did nothing. I offered my help, but I just sat there, watching him make phone call after phone call, eating my salad and listening to him give policy numbers and identifying information a bazillion times to a bazillion people.

UGH.

When he was done, I threw my arms around him in a big hug and asked if I could make him something to eat, relax, and take a moment to enjoy the fact that he was fine, our life is great, and no one was hurt.

He just smiled, said, “No, thanks…I’m heading off to work now to get some stuff done.”

My forehead wrinkled in confusion and disbelief, “Uh, you work for a parish. I think most folks would understand if you’re in a car wreck to at least take your lunch hour to breathe.”

But he just grabbed his briefcase, kissed me, and walked out the door, heading to the office, his original destination.

You gotta hand it to that Borchers work ethic…they sure don’t mess around.