La Vie
Weekend before last the husband and I had a lovely time in Berkeley; we drove, which perhaps we should not have done what with the mileage and everything and the fact that the engine light came on while we were there. Of course it came on the one day he didn't drive the 40 minutes with me from where we were staying into Berkeley proper, so I was on my own and trying not to panic. But I made it back, and the next morning (the morning we were going to start back across the Joy That Is Northern Nevada) we had it checked out. It looked pretty ok, so we headed off again.
Well, the light came back on this last Friday or Saturday. Ok, we'll get it looked at as soon as we can. This would not be so much of a terrible thing if Saturday night hadn't happened. That is, if, while I was at work, my husband had not passed out while driving his beloved Jeep and ended up in a six-car accident.
He's fine. But now we get to deal with all the insurance stuff and the possibility of being down to one car that we can't exactly afford to fix right now if it's anything serious (and the car itself, if we're honest, is not sounding too good).
BUT. Here's where I turned out to be right when I kept telling him (and myself) that everything will be ok. We thought the Jeep was totaled. It still very well may be, but when we went to the tow yard to pick it up, it actually started. He put a spare tire on it and managed to even drive it home (with me following, of course, just in case), even though it drove a little wonky. It definitely has issues, but considering the front bumper is smashed in, it's something of a miracle that when he opened the hood, there was no visible damage to the engine bed. It's leaking a little bit of something and the suspension looks like it took a hit, but we just might not have to say goodbye to it yet. Alun's uncle is a mechanic and has agreed to come down pretty soon to look at both of the cars. And since we were able to get the Jeep out of the yard on our own, we didn't have to pay any extra storage fees. Just the towing fee, but, well, that can't be helped. If we end up having to scrap the poor thing we'll probably get about enough to cover it.
Then there's the insurance, which was stressing us on a couple of counts. First, we didn't have collision coverage (the Jeep's a little too old and we're a little too poor for it to be worth it). There's really nothing we can do about that; if there's too much damage to it we'll just have to give up. But we're letting ourselves be a little bit hopeful? Anyway, there's also the fact that the liability we have might not be enough to cover damages to the other cars and we may end up having to settle things in court, which we Very Much do not want to do. But! Talking to the claims adjuster yesterday we found out that if we can establish (i.e. get a doctor's notice or something) that his blacking out was medical and unavoidable--unlike if he had just, say, fallen asleep at the wheel--then it could become a no-fault accident.
Well that would be really good for us, but the Big Problem With That is that we currently don't have health insurance. (I know, we fail. Really.) So he explained that to the adjuster, who informed us that since any visits and tests are directly related to the accident, it'll be billed to the auto insurance.
So Alun's alive (I can't tell you how amazed and grateful I still am that he wasn't even injured--and neither was anyone else), we still have one (currently) working car, and everything else could work out just fine, if not precisely the way we want it to. (We were really hoping the Jeep could haul a moving trailer for us before the end, but oh well.)
It's a mess, sure, but I'm being shockingly uncharacteristically optimistic.
Well, the light came back on this last Friday or Saturday. Ok, we'll get it looked at as soon as we can. This would not be so much of a terrible thing if Saturday night hadn't happened. That is, if, while I was at work, my husband had not passed out while driving his beloved Jeep and ended up in a six-car accident.
He's fine. But now we get to deal with all the insurance stuff and the possibility of being down to one car that we can't exactly afford to fix right now if it's anything serious (and the car itself, if we're honest, is not sounding too good).
BUT. Here's where I turned out to be right when I kept telling him (and myself) that everything will be ok. We thought the Jeep was totaled. It still very well may be, but when we went to the tow yard to pick it up, it actually started. He put a spare tire on it and managed to even drive it home (with me following, of course, just in case), even though it drove a little wonky. It definitely has issues, but considering the front bumper is smashed in, it's something of a miracle that when he opened the hood, there was no visible damage to the engine bed. It's leaking a little bit of something and the suspension looks like it took a hit, but we just might not have to say goodbye to it yet. Alun's uncle is a mechanic and has agreed to come down pretty soon to look at both of the cars. And since we were able to get the Jeep out of the yard on our own, we didn't have to pay any extra storage fees. Just the towing fee, but, well, that can't be helped. If we end up having to scrap the poor thing we'll probably get about enough to cover it.
Then there's the insurance, which was stressing us on a couple of counts. First, we didn't have collision coverage (the Jeep's a little too old and we're a little too poor for it to be worth it). There's really nothing we can do about that; if there's too much damage to it we'll just have to give up. But we're letting ourselves be a little bit hopeful? Anyway, there's also the fact that the liability we have might not be enough to cover damages to the other cars and we may end up having to settle things in court, which we Very Much do not want to do. But! Talking to the claims adjuster yesterday we found out that if we can establish (i.e. get a doctor's notice or something) that his blacking out was medical and unavoidable--unlike if he had just, say, fallen asleep at the wheel--then it could become a no-fault accident.
Well that would be really good for us, but the Big Problem With That is that we currently don't have health insurance. (I know, we fail. Really.) So he explained that to the adjuster, who informed us that since any visits and tests are directly related to the accident, it'll be billed to the auto insurance.
So Alun's alive (I can't tell you how amazed and grateful I still am that he wasn't even injured--and neither was anyone else), we still have one (currently) working car, and everything else could work out just fine, if not precisely the way we want it to. (We were really hoping the Jeep could haul a moving trailer for us before the end, but oh well.)
It's a mess, sure, but I'm being shockingly uncharacteristically optimistic.