The Wreckage of my Life
My week started with a bang! I got to perform an impromptu experiment in physics, with elements of momentum, friction, and compressibility.
I.e., I had a car wreck. Monday morning, some fupid bucking stitch ran the stoplight as I drove to school, and I plowed into the side of her beautiful blue Dodge Ram. The Ram rammed the front of my car back about 6 inches. The hood was all but torn off, and came to rest against my passenger side window. It could easily have knocked the window in on me. The radiator fan was shattered, and a bunch of other stuff is wrong too. One of the engine mounts was sheared, and I was only going about 25-30 mph. Cara is (was) an '87 Chevy Celebrity, and so the costs to replace a hood and fan and engine mount and straighten the frame and and and... would be more than she is worth. So Cara (from Car A, the first car I ever owned outright) is dead.
Of course, the insurance company is giving me grief about getting the police report and so forth. Due to their restricted membership, USAA is very inexpensive, but apparently not nearly as helpful as some of the others. GGRRRRrrrrrrrr......
Always, ALWAYS, no matter how pissed you are at the other party for causing your accident, exchange names and insurance info. I didn't want to talk to this woman, and even less so to the belligerent boyfriend (or whatever they were to each other) whom she called, but now I can't file a claim against them until I get that info, which doesn't happen until I see the police report (7 to 10 days). Meanwhile, the 2 witnesses who are willing to attest that it was not my fault are sitting idle, forgetting what they saw. Hopefully the calls I made today to them help alleviate that.
Right after the accident, SFB climbs down out of her cab and starts yelling at me, "You know I had the green light, don't you?" That was the only time I said anything to her, to the effect of "I know nothing of the sort. Don't talk to me." The cop was not particularly helpful either, and didn't issue any citations. I guess I should have asked the witnesses to wait for the police, but again, that didn't come to me at the time. For someone who's supposed to be smart, I can be awfully dumb sometimes!
I should come out ok in the long run. I'm mostly uninjured (had a stiff neck yesterday, but it's almost unnoticeable now), no medical bills, and I have the use of my grandmother's vehicle for the foreseeable future. No one was injured, and I have witnesses that she doesn't. But I'm angry that it's going to take so much time to get the recompense I'm due; I'm angry that she's not going to get a ticket; and I'm angry that I didn't hurt her, or at least that pretty pickup, more! If my car's going to be trashed, shouldn't there be more than a six inch dent on the truck? That's all I saw, anyway.
I've got to stop brooding about this and wishing those idiots ill. Just because she deserves the rewards of stupidity and lying doesn't mean I need to poison my thoughts with the corresponding malice. I really don't want her to be physically hurt. I do want that guy who apparently owned the truck to know she lied, and that she ran the light. I want the police to know it, and I want her insurance to know it. I expect I'll only get one of the three.
Ok, well, now that I've gone over that story for about the tenth time in 2 days, I hope I'm done. No hope for getting out of this mood while I sit here, so I'll be going. But first, my obligatory quiz:
You are a brown dragon! You are the most reliable
of the dragons. You are trustworthy, and you
make a good leader with only a little
supervision. Riders of brown dragons are often
Wingseconds, the faithful seconds-in-command.
You are sensible and always perform as
expected.
What color of Pernese dragon are you?
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I.e., I had a car wreck. Monday morning, some fupid bucking stitch ran the stoplight as I drove to school, and I plowed into the side of her beautiful blue Dodge Ram. The Ram rammed the front of my car back about 6 inches. The hood was all but torn off, and came to rest against my passenger side window. It could easily have knocked the window in on me. The radiator fan was shattered, and a bunch of other stuff is wrong too. One of the engine mounts was sheared, and I was only going about 25-30 mph. Cara is (was) an '87 Chevy Celebrity, and so the costs to replace a hood and fan and engine mount and straighten the frame and and and... would be more than she is worth. So Cara (from Car A, the first car I ever owned outright) is dead.
Of course, the insurance company is giving me grief about getting the police report and so forth. Due to their restricted membership, USAA is very inexpensive, but apparently not nearly as helpful as some of the others. GGRRRRrrrrrrrr......
Always, ALWAYS, no matter how pissed you are at the other party for causing your accident, exchange names and insurance info. I didn't want to talk to this woman, and even less so to the belligerent boyfriend (or whatever they were to each other) whom she called, but now I can't file a claim against them until I get that info, which doesn't happen until I see the police report (7 to 10 days). Meanwhile, the 2 witnesses who are willing to attest that it was not my fault are sitting idle, forgetting what they saw. Hopefully the calls I made today to them help alleviate that.
Right after the accident, SFB climbs down out of her cab and starts yelling at me, "You know I had the green light, don't you?" That was the only time I said anything to her, to the effect of "I know nothing of the sort. Don't talk to me." The cop was not particularly helpful either, and didn't issue any citations. I guess I should have asked the witnesses to wait for the police, but again, that didn't come to me at the time. For someone who's supposed to be smart, I can be awfully dumb sometimes!
I should come out ok in the long run. I'm mostly uninjured (had a stiff neck yesterday, but it's almost unnoticeable now), no medical bills, and I have the use of my grandmother's vehicle for the foreseeable future. No one was injured, and I have witnesses that she doesn't. But I'm angry that it's going to take so much time to get the recompense I'm due; I'm angry that she's not going to get a ticket; and I'm angry that I didn't hurt her, or at least that pretty pickup, more! If my car's going to be trashed, shouldn't there be more than a six inch dent on the truck? That's all I saw, anyway.
I've got to stop brooding about this and wishing those idiots ill. Just because she deserves the rewards of stupidity and lying doesn't mean I need to poison my thoughts with the corresponding malice. I really don't want her to be physically hurt. I do want that guy who apparently owned the truck to know she lied, and that she ran the light. I want the police to know it, and I want her insurance to know it. I expect I'll only get one of the three.
Ok, well, now that I've gone over that story for about the tenth time in 2 days, I hope I'm done. No hope for getting out of this mood while I sit here, so I'll be going. But first, my obligatory quiz:
You are a brown dragon! You are the most reliable
of the dragons. You are trustworthy, and you
make a good leader with only a little
supervision. Riders of brown dragons are often
Wingseconds, the faithful seconds-in-command.
You are sensible and always perform as
expected.
What color of Pernese dragon are you?
brought to you by Quizilla