Scratch and Dent

Day 286

We’ve had a small complication in our year of buying nothing new.

 

Scratch and Dent

Scratch and Dent

What you see here is my car after I yielded to an emergency vehicle a couple of night ago and the car behind me– did not.  Well, actually I guess TECHNICALLY she did yield since physics proved it difficult for her to continue driving through the intersection after the two rather large solids collided.

But no one was hurt, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.

Although, my oldest child hyperventilated and my youngest started to shriek, “Do people die in car crashes?”  This was during those moments when I was trying to assess damage and move out of traffic.  I ignored her, so she repeated her question about two-thousand times until I blurted out, NO.  I panicked, so I lied and figured we’d address my inner ostrich later.

Do you think she might forget?  Because I’d like to forget about it.

The damage is a scrunched passenger’s side and a bent something-or-other that affects the steering and is apparently important enough that my insurance company has deemed it not drivable.

Our car is definitely one of those things, our family cannot make due without for the remainder of the year. To fix it, parts will need to be purchased.

In my mind’s eye, for about half a second, I had this vision of us becoming one of those urban families that flow effortlessly around the city on public transportation to places like The Theatre and The Market. But that’s not going to work.  Because first, we live in a suburb; second, we drive our car to places like The Movies and The Grocery store.  Third, there is no real public transportation unless you count the school bus and finally, even if we HAD public transportation, I can barely get us to our myriad of commitments on time with unfettered access to wheels, there is NO WAY I could manage a train schedule.

So we are going to get the car fixed.

But here is how I am wiggling out of this on a technicality.  I asked the insurance company to send the payment directly to the auto dealer making the repairs.  So really, the INSURANCE COMPANY is buying the parts.

Do you like where I am going with this?

I also jokingly asked the service guy if our deductible could be applied to labor, not parts. I was just kidding really but I guess they had sent him to customer service school where they apparently taught him that the customer is always right, even the addled ones. So he did humor me and said he’d see what he could do.

I like his attitude.