Recent Plaza Del Lago car crash

This happened, not as severely, with my mom (rest her soul) about 20 years ago. Mom drove through the window of the Wilmette Plaza Del Lago Crate and Barrel. (Their first branch store)

Mom was dog tired - she had just undergone radiation for breast cancer - but wanted to stop and buy a gift for a friend. While parking, she shifted into forward instead of reverse and then hit the gas instead of the brake and pulled, what I called, a “Terminator.” For weeks after, I would greet mom on the phone with my bad Arnold impression, “I’ll be back.” 

She laughed every time. 

After plowing into, but not all the way through, the Crate and Barrel window and the display case, mom had the wherewithal to back up, get out of her car and go into the store. No lie, mom stood in the store behind the shocked gawkers and actually said,

“Gosh, I wonder what idiot could have done this?”

What mom was proudest of was, after giving the store her information, she had the presence of mind to buy the gift she came there for and drove home. (The car wasn’t nearly as badly damaged as the window. Just a dent on the hood) 

A few weeks later, mom got a letter from Crate and Barrel congratulating her for opening the first drive-through Crate and Barrel.

Mom framed the letter.