A car ran into our house today.

What a way to start the day. We were outside having coffee on the deck with our neighbor while her 3 kids, my daughter, and another neighbor boy road their bicycles around and played in our yards. A car drove by the house and up to the intersection of our street and US Hwy 2 in town. Next thing we know we hear a loud CRUNCH! and couldn't see the car anymore. I walked into the porch and looked to the northern end of our porch where it appeared the car outside disappeared against our house. I called out to my husband and said that the car hit the house. He quickly went off the deck and rounded the corner to see what had happened. Next thing I know we're standing there with one of our Bumble Gum Machine cops (they have one single LARGE light in the middle of the top of the car - just like in Mayberry), with a towtruck, the owner of the car, a flattened stop sign, the car, our neighbor and 7 kids (note there were only 5 playing in our yards up to this point and all along the street people decided to come outside to have their coffee on the curb or on their steps. Or a number of neighborhood kids decided to ride down our street. Of course! This was a major event in town. We had people stopping by in the afternoon to ask about the car that ran into our house!
In the end, the guy's breaks had given out so he had hoped to slow the car and stop it by running up against the curb. Unfortunately it just jumped the curb, flattened the stop sign, squashed our wrought iron railing, and ran into our concrete steps. It never moved the steps. The only damage was a squashed Peony (sp?) and the railing (which we have 2 more sets already that we can replace it with). The cop had white paint on his blue car so we were teasing him about his driving skills. He was was a good sport and enjoying the diversion from serious work. It wasn't his car anyway. We were able to reinforce to the kids why they've got to listen and stay away from US 2. No one was hurt and we had a VERY entertaining morning. It's always a little fun to be the center of what feels like the whole town's attention. At least our place is certainly not boring. We seem to be the local bar's entertainment as the bartender has commented often on "what are you doing NOW there?" since we're always building something or planting this tree, or something like that. A fun day!