Monday, June 7, 2010

Van-tastic!

So.

I had my collision in February. Long story short, it was one of those snow days where we were all, “Holy crap! It’s snowing! In East Texas! Again!” The first time we had one of those, everyone was amazed and all atwitter about it. “What a marvelous thing, this snow!” By the time the second one rolled around, it was toward the end of the month and Spring was on Her way and, well, the snow thing wasn’t so cute anymore. The third (and final, thank God!) time it decided to snow on us, it was March, and I had already planted my blueberries and, good grief, it’s snowing again?!?

So yeah. Snow. Second go around. Yeah, it was cool that it was snowing and yeah, it was pretty, but c’mon, it’s cold!

And there were things to do. Harrison’s class had to have snacks and I was supposed to be the mom who provided them the next day. (I forgot to make note of this on grocery day, of course…) He also had a birthday party to go to. A girl’s party. A girl he had asked to marry him who had agreed. (It should be noted that she later rescinded her agreement—he pestered her to the point that she didn’t like him anymore. Sigh. Kid’s still learning about pestering.) There were presents to buy.

It’s been noted before that I’m kind of a snob. Whatever. I refuse to go into Wal-Mart and that makes me a snob to some, but in my eyes, it makes me really freakin’ smart.

Except when you have to get snacks and a Barbie doll. And it’s snowing. And Target is all the way across town.

I decided to go ahead and truck it across town to Target because, c’mon, it’s snowing! Everyone else will be at home making snowmen!

And they were. Except for this one kid who was driving his parent’s Explorer. He was out driving around.

And the little bugger rear ended me.

Grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that bad a crash. He lost control of his car on a wet patch coming up on the traffic light at which I was about to turn. He hit me at a relatively slow speed and, thank God, no one was hurt. Harrison was with me but he was buckled in and in his booster seat. He was more mad about his milk getting spilled from his cup than anything else.

The kid, on the other hand, was pretty peeved that I insisted on calling the cops to come out. As it happens, it’s good that I did. Apparently, the kid had an insurance card with him, but he was not covered by that insurance policy.

Which we didn’t find out until a few weeks ago. His insurance His parents’ insurance agency pussy-footed around for three months before they finally let us know that, nope, sorry, kid wasn’t covered, so we’re not fixing your van’s tailgate.

Awesome.

Robert has been working with our guys (Allstate, in case you wondered—if President Palmer’s involved, I’m in…) for a few weeks now, coordinating the schedules of me, him, the insurance peeps and the body shop guy with the turning over of my van to be fixed and the getting of a loaner vehicle so I’m not marooned here at the house. It has been no small feat for him and I have to say, when I finally showed up at all the places I was supposed to go to today—insurance place, body shop, rental place—they all knew the score and were ready to do what needed to be done. I have the best husband! :)

As a funny aside to this ongoing story (I should get my van back by the end of the week, which is when I’ll consider it over, although I think our insurance bulldogs are attacking the non-insured kid and suing), the vehicle I’m renting to replace my van is…my van. I mean, it’s identical. The only difference is that it’s a 2010 and mine is a 2008. Color (or non-color—they’re white!), seats, buttons on the dash. It’s all the same. It’s nice, though, because as I was driving home from the rental shop I didn’t have to fumble around to find things—I knew exactly where they were.

I’m really ready for this week to be over so that this chapter in my car adventures will be over.

And if it snows next winter? I’m not leaving the house.

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