Cursed!
Everything was going so well after my birthday. We had a wonderful relaxing weekend in Truckee...I even swam (briefly) in Lake Tahoe. We found a warm spot--the water was probably a whole 63 degrees!
Today, however, tragedy struck. I decided to enjoy the benefits of working from home by meeting Mr. Pink for lunch. Then I swung by Trader Joe's to pick up a few items. I was only in the store for maybe 15 minutes, but in that short time, I was a victim of a hit-and-run. My cute blue Prius sustained serious scrapes and denting to the driver's side door, and there were no witnesses to the crime.
I really thought things would be different with my Prius. My previous car, a 1997 Toyota Camry, had such an affinity for accidents that it seemed almost cursed. (Some of the accidents were my fault, though. The car was too big for me and I have some problems with depth perception, which led to a number of scrapes and scratches, particularly while trying to park.) Anyway, two days after I got the Camry, the car was struck by a speeding driver. A few years later, I was rear-ended. But what goes around comes around, because then I rear-ended someone. And of course, there was the cosmetic damage from the aforementioned parking problems. But with the Prius, everything was fine. I've had it for nearly three months now, and it remained unblemished, until today.
I couldn't believe that the driver who hit me hadn't left a note. I called Mr. Pink and I called the police and I called the insurance company, who told me I'd have to pay my $500 deductible to fix the damage. Then I decided to do some detective work. My car had green paint on it, so that narrowed it down right there. After one false start--a green Honda Accord whose owner swore she wasn't the culprit--I located the car. It was a green Taurus with a freshly scraped bumper and blue paint on it. As luck would have it, the driver, an older woman was just coming out of the store.
I said, "Excuse me, ma'am, someone hit my parked car, and I noticed that your bumper is scraped up and has some blue paint on it." She admitted fault immediately, so I was able to get her insurance information and call my insurance company back. "Oh," she said, "I did feel something, but I didn't notice any damage to my car, so I thought everything was fine." Obviously, she didn't look hard enough! Her not leaving a note really irked me, especially because there was a time long ago when I was first learning to parallel park, that I scraped another car. It was the middle of the night and no one was around, but I still left a note. It's the right thing to do!
At least I won't be out the $500 deductible. And now, even when I'm in a hurry, or when I'm just running into the store for a few minutes, I will always look for a protected end spot. I want to try and keep this car nice. It's much easier to park, so I hope I won't have any "operator error" scratches on it. And I will do my best to protect it from the other poor parkers out there. New car owners, what do you do? Are you fanatical about parking in the end spaces or far away from other cars, or do you have a more lackadasical attitude and figure that the door ding fairies will get you one way or the other?
Today, however, tragedy struck. I decided to enjoy the benefits of working from home by meeting Mr. Pink for lunch. Then I swung by Trader Joe's to pick up a few items. I was only in the store for maybe 15 minutes, but in that short time, I was a victim of a hit-and-run. My cute blue Prius sustained serious scrapes and denting to the driver's side door, and there were no witnesses to the crime.
I really thought things would be different with my Prius. My previous car, a 1997 Toyota Camry, had such an affinity for accidents that it seemed almost cursed. (Some of the accidents were my fault, though. The car was too big for me and I have some problems with depth perception, which led to a number of scrapes and scratches, particularly while trying to park.) Anyway, two days after I got the Camry, the car was struck by a speeding driver. A few years later, I was rear-ended. But what goes around comes around, because then I rear-ended someone. And of course, there was the cosmetic damage from the aforementioned parking problems. But with the Prius, everything was fine. I've had it for nearly three months now, and it remained unblemished, until today.
I couldn't believe that the driver who hit me hadn't left a note. I called Mr. Pink and I called the police and I called the insurance company, who told me I'd have to pay my $500 deductible to fix the damage. Then I decided to do some detective work. My car had green paint on it, so that narrowed it down right there. After one false start--a green Honda Accord whose owner swore she wasn't the culprit--I located the car. It was a green Taurus with a freshly scraped bumper and blue paint on it. As luck would have it, the driver, an older woman was just coming out of the store.
I said, "Excuse me, ma'am, someone hit my parked car, and I noticed that your bumper is scraped up and has some blue paint on it." She admitted fault immediately, so I was able to get her insurance information and call my insurance company back. "Oh," she said, "I did feel something, but I didn't notice any damage to my car, so I thought everything was fine." Obviously, she didn't look hard enough! Her not leaving a note really irked me, especially because there was a time long ago when I was first learning to parallel park, that I scraped another car. It was the middle of the night and no one was around, but I still left a note. It's the right thing to do!
At least I won't be out the $500 deductible. And now, even when I'm in a hurry, or when I'm just running into the store for a few minutes, I will always look for a protected end spot. I want to try and keep this car nice. It's much easier to park, so I hope I won't have any "operator error" scratches on it. And I will do my best to protect it from the other poor parkers out there. New car owners, what do you do? Are you fanatical about parking in the end spaces or far away from other cars, or do you have a more lackadasical attitude and figure that the door ding fairies will get you one way or the other?
posted by Astera @ 6:23 PM
2 Comments:
At 4:35 AM,
Anonymous said…
Damn those green Taurus things!
One of those ran over my friends motor bike whilst it was in a parking space.
Apparently it was hard to see - And the fact that I was sitting on it at the time waving my arms around going 'STOP!' didn't seem to make a difference.
At 10:36 PM,
Bruingirl said…
I scraped up a brand new car once in Westwood. It was hardly noticeable, but I still left a note. The guy called me to thank me for putting a note on his parked car and didn't even get any of my information. He was just happy that someone had the decency to leave a note.
Post a Comment
<< Home