god-DAMMIT.

I rear-ended someone today.

I was coming home from a trip to Dallas, got momentarily distracted at a red light in Waxahachie, and banged into the back of somebody else’s Jimmy mini-SUV.  So far as either he or I could see, I didn’t do his vehicle any harm, except for pushing his trailer hitch out of place (it’s held onto his bumper by two bolts, so he can just loosen the bolts, swivel the hitch back into position and re-tighten them), but I lost a big strip of plastic off the front bumper, broke out several pieces of grill and one headlight lens (not the bulb, though—that still works properly), and creased the front of the hood so it doesn’t latch properly any more.  It’s probably a couple of grand worth of body shop work, since the bumper will have to be replaced and all repainted; I think the hood can be straightened. But of course my collision insurance would have a thousand-dollar deductible, and I can’t find a thousand dollars right now any more than I can flap my arms and fly.

These last two years I have just been snake-bit.  There’s no other adequate term for it.