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Diaryland is calling.....
The one with the car accident
01/23/2002 - 12:31 a.m.
Today was really, really, really, so very not so good. It started ok - I got up, feeling buoyed by the previous evening's pleasantness, but tired and really not ready for work. I did a little on-lineism, showered, dressed, got in the car.
Now, first, you must know that it snowed last night - not a lot, really, 2, maybe 3 inches. But it stopped snowing before 11. And as I am driving out of my little neo-suburban courtyard, it is obvious the plows have been through and done their thing to completion - or so I imagined.
Now, I live on this kinda windy, countryish road, with little hills and turns. And I'm driving out to the main road, when I come around a curve, which then leads to a slight downward grade. The sun is shining madly through the trees, and I'm getting bad glare on my windshield, when all of a sudden, out of the shadows on this slight incline, appears a Ford F-250. With a snowplow on the front. On the WRONG side of the road. And I am heading straight for it.
Shock. Horror. Brakes. Steer to avoid. Manage to not hit him head on, but not to avoid smacking his rear right quarter with my front right quarter.
I get out - say, "I couldn't see you because of the glare."
He gets out - says, "Why were you going so fucking fast?" or words to that effect. This is, as we all know, the absolute best way to start a conversation about a traffic accident. It is also nuts - because it's a windy wet stupid countryish road - I was doing between 25 and 30, which was perfectly appropriate if some goober wasn't on the wrong side of the road.
So things aren't going so good. I say, "Um - aren't you on the wrong side of the road?"
He says, "But I have my light on."
His light. Riiiiight. It's a little orange Hawaii 5-0 model stuck on the roof of the cab. Barely noticeable NOW, out of the glare, and completely not noticeable in the glare of the sun a minute ago.
So I say something pithy about his light and being on the wrong side of the road, and he says, "Well, let's exchange information." At this point I realize I haven't had a chance to look at my car's damage yet, because I was worried about him and wanted to see if he was all right.
I go look, and - the wheel is destroyed - looks like PacMan if he was designed by the guy who did Metal Gear. The fender is moshed, and the headlight is hanging by a cable. I decide I better call the police, because the insurance is going to want a police report for this accident.
Out comes my cell phone, and clamp goes his mouth. From this moment on, he will not say another word to me.
First, I call 911 - they connect me with the local cops. Then I call my boss, tell him I was in an accident but am ok, and - the battery dies. I knew I should have charged the filthy thing.
The cop comes - he's barely interested in what's going on - gives us forms to fill out and basically ignores the whole situation. The one thing he does do is act as a courier for our insurance info.
Paperwork done, cop goes, PlowMan goes. I start the car, plug in the cell, and call the insurance company. They take my info, then transfer me to the roadside assistance which I pay an extra buck fifty a month for, and they do the stupidest thing they could - although they know it's an accident, that a claim has been filed, and that the car needs to be taken to an authorized repair center, they tell me that I can only be towed to the "nearest service station," which is, no joke, one half of one mile away. So I say - "Um - are you sure?" They say, "Yes."
So, the tow guy comes. As he's jockeying into position to get my car up on his flatbed, a teenaged fellow in a white Jeep Grand Cherokee comes by heading to the street and almost hits the tow truck twice. TowMan #1 and I look at each other with knowing expressions, shake our heads, and bond in the knowledge that we aren't such maroons.
Car is placed on flatbed, TowMan#1 and I are about to begin our great journey when a woman pulls up, asking us if we saw a teenager in a white Jeep. "Yes," says TowMan #1, "he almost hit me twice. Why?"
"I just caught him trying to break into my house. You didn't get his license plate, did you?"
"No," says TowMan, "but he sure was in a hurry." "Yeah," I chime in, "we just thought he was a jerk - not a crook - so we didn't bother with his license plate."
Now comes the same cop from my accident - we flag him down, and the woman tells him her story, and TowMan#1 gives his impression of the age of the youth, the age of the Jeep, and the urgency the young man seemed to feel in his need to depart. The cop thanks us, the woman thanks us, they depart, and we drive the half mile to the service place.
Car off the flatbed, sign the form, bye bye TowMan. Great. Now what? I'm still waiting to be called back by the insurance to do more paperwork, but this is silly. I'm not going to sit here at a place that doesn't even do bodywork and is almost certainly not an authorized service center, so I call the insurance folks back, and they do what should have been done in the first place, which is scoff at the roadside assistance people for being such goobers, and get me in touch with the authorized service people who will come and tow me to their place.
As I wait, I write an entry for this here journal, entitled "Oh baby, your email address is sooooooo sexy........." Who knew that sitting in my undrivable car, with a ThinkPad balanced precariously on my lap, listening to Afghan Whigs, writing about porn spam, would be the second highest point of my day? (For the real high point, see the end of this little missive.)
The rest of the story is uneventful. TowMan #2 arrives, loads up the car, and takes me across town to his joint. "One of the top 3 autobody places in the state," sez he. Nice to know. We get there, they take my car and my info, and they have been good enough to call Enterprise to come and have a rental waiting for me. Swinging. The Enterprise is a Dodge Stratus - not my style at all - but it's clean and has a working radio. And as it's covered by the insurance, well, who am I to complain?
I take my necessary crap from my car, of course forgetting the one thing I really needed not to forget (yup, Miss Almost-Perfect's parking permit that I haven't gotten into the mail yet because, well, I just haven't ok?). Then I drove off to work.
Which also sucked. On the day the project is scheduled to end, we realize that a condition has gone unidentified and untested, and scramble to test and verify all afternoon, until we come to our senses and realize that we need one more day. So, good, we'll do the testing and verification tomorrow, but now we have to do the release tomorrow night, with half the staff unavailable for various reasons. The devil's in Memphis, boys.
Feh.
The rest of the night wasn't so bad. Wrote a great big long letter to a pal, which was a swell time, went to the gym and did the circuit training thing which sucked great big giant ass heads,
BUT:
I also weighed myself for the first time since last week,
AND:
I have lost 4 or 5 pounds.
And that, my friend, almost very nearly makes up for the hell of a day that it was.
Music to ache by:
A-Set - "Pick A Lie" (Songs From The Red Room)
"You've burned your bridges well, from what I can tell......."
See what I did there? I went and moved my diaryring to a rings and reviews page!
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