car crash, customization by smith

car customization and foto by Smith

This is one blog I’d rather not have been able to write.

I’ve been promoted from Corporal Clumsy to Major Bummer.

I got our car clobbered two hours ago; smashed the left front fender, bent the hood, totaled the headlight, loosened the bumper.

I’d driven over to pick up some sesame Chinese chicken for lunch and was waiting for traffic to leave the restaurant. A pickup in the opposite lane was trying to turn into where I was and we waited on each other a good while. Finally I looked at on-coming traffic, found none, looked back at him, thought he motioned me to go first, and pulled out WITHOUT LOOKING AGAIN first and SMASH, a pickup coming the other way clobbers me. Totally my fault.

I back up back into the restaurant, start to look for our insurance papers, and the guy who hit me comes over to see if I’m alright. Tell him it’s my fault and we have insurance. He laughs and says he wasn’t hurt and neither was his pickup, just a couple scrapes on his rubber bumper, that it’s up to me if we report this at all. Our insurance just covers the other fellow, not our car, so we don’t report it. (I called the police station to see if I were required by law to report the accident and they said no, as long as the other guy is happy, don’t worry about it). He offers to drive me home, but I say I think I can drive it home so we pull the smashed fender away from the wheel, I shake his hand and thank him for being so nice, and away I go.

Come in and tell my wife what I did, how stupid it was, and that it was entirely my fault. She puts her head down in misery for awhile, then says it is what it is and starts trying to make me feel better, says that I’m not to blame myself and shouldn’t worry about it, that she’s fucked up cars in the past in parking lots herself.

Drove it over to our mechanic and we’re awaiting an estimate now, see if we can afford to get it fixed or have to find another cheap used car.

I’ve felt gloom and doom all day for no known reason, like I had to report to the Principle’s office or something. The weather is gray, cold and rainy, and the laundromat this morning was extra TV loud with The Price Is Right game show and Drew Carey blaring unpleasantly away, and the laundromat attendant snapped at me for sitting on the clothes folding table as I tried to get as far away from the TV as possible so I could read my book.

Not a good day. Can’t afford the loss of the car and can’t afford a mess of money to get it fixed so will sit here and brood until we get our mechanic’s report.

The good thing in this is how nice the guy who hit me was, how well Lady is handling my stupidity, and that no one was injured. And I’m glad that it happened to me rather than to Lady – I’d rather have her unsuccessfully trying to console me than vice versa. Also good I could drive it home and over to the repair shop, and that no drugs or alcohol were involved. Gotta take the bright spots where I can find them.

I’ve been down a wee bit lately as the days become grayer, wetter and colder because I dread the upcoming Cleveland winter – we managed to miss the 2006-2007 winter by being on the warm Adriatic and the warmer Mediterranean, and we missed the 2007 through 2009 cold weather by living in southern Mexico.

This is Smith, reporting from Stupidville, looking around, hoping the Fool Killer’s occupied elsewhere.

car customization and foto by Smith