Car Accidents and Criminal Minds

All it takes is an instant.

Today. 4pm. An accident up the street slowed traffic. A Beverly High School biology teacher was driving slowly  towards Wilmington and as the sun glanced off her mirrors and she slammed on the breaks, the silver honda civic behind her, my silver honda civic, didn’t manage to stop in time. I rear-ended that nice teachers car and slammed back and forth as the car behind me added the the circus and I became the sandwiched bumper-car. One accident report, 3 kind bystanders, a tow-truck ride, a whiplash-induced migraine and a whole slew of tears later, I sat stranded in the mall feeling like my life just got a kick in the groin (apparently my life is male?).

In moments like these, when crappy events cause us to wallow in Anne-Shirley-ish depths of despair, sometimes all we need is a little perspective to jolt us away from negative self-absorption. Nothing like serious horror to render a bad day less abjectly miserable.

Enter my recent fixation with Criminal Minds.

In retrospect, I think I may have had a little concussion following my run-in with the other car. Call it a hunch, but I think the nausea and the headache after my head slammed back and forth between the seats are fairly reasonable indicators. Concussions are not fun, this is true. Thankfully, I have Criminal Minds to put things into perspective. Prentiss, Hotchner, JJ, Penelope, Spencer, Ross and Morgan open the minds of serial killers on a daily basis. Clearly, this would be shocking in and of itself, but its their personal lives that give the real perspective needed.  Take Prentiss: What’s a headache in comparison to being beaten and branded by a homicidal sociopath before being forced to fake your own death and go into hiding, abandoning everyone you care about to avoid being hunted down by the American-based Irish mob?

See? Perspective. I can now add this to my growing list of reasons for loving this show.