First, I have to say that this is the first I’ve heard of someone hitting a dog with a bike. I wouldn’t have been worrying about it either, so you really shouldn’t feel stupid or inadequate. I mean—what are the odds? Second, I really hope things go well at the doctor. I’d be sick about the broken camera (when I read that, I imagined my new Rebel in pieces and wanted to cry). I’m not sure how I’d feel about the bike, since we have so many hills that biking here should be outlawed as a form of torture. I was once in a car accident that was really stupid, back when I was in college. I was turning left into a parking lot and had stopped to wait for a break in the two lanes of oncoming traffic. There was a stoplight behind me, and the lane nearest me was backed up. A guy in a minivan stopped to leave an opening so I could go through. He waved me on, but I couldn’t see around him or the cars behind him to know if another car was coming. He kept waving though, so I figured the coast was clear and made the turn. As soon as I got past that van, I saw a pickup truck in the other lane heading straight for me. There was no time for me to stop or do anything other than cringe as the pickup plowed right into the passenger side of my car (luckily, I was alone). It really was a minor accident. No one was hurt, and no one was ticketed. My beloved first car, a Pontiac Fiero, was totaled. I cried for two days. I went back and forth between admitting to myself that the whole thing was my fault, because I should not have trusted the dude in the van, and blaming the dude in the van who waved me on. I did feel like an idiot, especially after the carful of kids I knew, including one of my sorority sisters, saw me and stopped to see if I was OK. I felt like even more of an idiot when I had to call my dad and tell him what happened. The fact that he didn’t yell at me made me feel worse. I had to go without a car for two months, and I tried to drown my sorrows in alchohol. In fact, I have a great picture from that night of myself and this boy I liked at a bar with these maraschino cherries…nevermind. I do blame myself for the accident, not in a really negative way, but more in a “lesson learned” kind of way. I still miss that car, I don’t care what anyone says about Fieros. Darn it, when I drove that car around with a Guns-n-Roses cassette blaring, I knew I was hot shit. But I digress. I was a very, very, careful driver from that point on, particularly when making left turns. I’m sure when you get back on your bike, you’ll think of this incident every time you bike past a dog. After a while, it just fades. You do what you need to do to take care of yourself, get your things fixed, and then move on. I hope the people who own the dog are doing some similar soul-searching and vowing to never let an accident like that happen again. They are probably, at this very moment, worrying about getting sued.