:(

We got our first ding in our first new car. It's a small dent by the passenger handle but oh, what a sad thing to see.

pain in the rear

Yesterday I was rear-ended!

I was on my way home from getting my hair done (a few new blonde highlights) and had stopped in for some groceries. When I came out of Harmons it was raining. Of course, this would be fine normally but I was driving the jeep which had no windows or roof other than the "bikini top" that covered a bit of the driver and passenger. I dumped all the groceries in the passenger seat so they wouldn't get soaked and headed home.

I pulled up to a stop at a light only to be rammed from behind and pushed forward into the vehicle in front of me. Are you supposed to pull out of traffic in an instance like this? Seems to me that in some driver's class I've been told that the officer likes to see the accident "in situ". I quickly dialed 911 and asked them what to do. Well, the driver in front of me pulled off into the parking lot beside us and the car behind me pulled off too so I pulled behind and didn't bother to wait for instruction from the 911 operator.

The driver of the car behind me came over as I was looking for damage to my rear-end. I told her that the police were on their way - I had called them. "Why????" she whined. Really? I said "Well, when you hit me, you pushed me into the car in front of me . . ." I guess I convinced her. There was no way I was just going to talk with her and get insurance info and hope that it all worked out! It would have been my luck that she gave me bogus info or gave her insurance company a different story once it came time to deal with fixes. I didn't want to end up paying for the damage to the car in front of me because we didn't get a police report.

Of course, through all of this, it's raining on us. I stood outside the jeep since I was getting just as wet sitting inside the jeep. And the crenshaw melon I had sitting on the front seat had been propelled off the seat in the accident and landed on my tomatoes!

Well, the good news is, the officer was quick and it was pretty painless, no one was hurt, and it doesn't look like the jeep sustained much damage at all. The back door/gate shuts a little bit differently but the spare tire mounted on the back seemed to take the majority of the force. In the front, the license plate ringer is no more and the plate itself is wrapped a bit around the bummer bit all in all, the jeep is made for scrapes and came through well.

The bad news is that the officer said that insurance companies would work out who had to pay for who. It could be that they would find me at fault (HUH????) and my insurance might have to pay for the damage of the car in front of me. When the officer said they might find me at fault I slipped out with "because I was at a stop and was rammed from behind into the car in front of me?" Oh, I'm a snot. I shouldn't have said that. I felt bad for being snide and told the officer thank you for his help. Insurance company potential problems aren't his fault!

What a pain in the rear (pun intended).

Official

It's official, we now drive an old car versus just an older car.I think that I am going to change my mind set and make it 150,000 that is the level one must reach to exceed older and become old because I owe too much on this car to have it be old! Remember when you were little and age 40 was so old??? Seeing as how my husband is closer to 40 than to 30, I think that I'd like to change that mind set as well because seriously - I'm close to being married to a 40 year old!

Even though I won't reach that age myself until 3 years later, just the idea that my husband is that old makes me feel old too. So, a change of mind set - age 70 is the new old (of course, no offense meant to those of my readers that might be closer to 70 than 40)

Rear-View

This is what I get to look at every day as I drive around. Nothing much better than seeing a baby in your rear-view mirror.

the finger

I really hate “the finger”! I think that the user looks vulgar and uneducated and it makes me feel horrible. Today coming to work I moved into the left lane after having check my mirrors and my blind spot. I quickly noticed a car behind me pull from the carpool lane directly behind me. After a bit, I started to fret that perhaps, I had somehow cut that person off and made them swerve out of the lane into the carpool lane as I came over. The car only had one person in it and was touching her head (I thought). After more thinking I figured that probably, yes, I had cut them off, they weren’t just coming out of the carpool lane they were illegally in, and they were probably raising the finger at me rather than fixing their hair! I felt really bad since it was a complete accident. I had done all my checking and really just didn’t see her there!

Well, a few miles down the road as she passed me in the middle lane, she gave me the finger, then promptly pulled directly in front of me and slowed to show her displeasure. My feelings went first from sorry, to embarrassed to immediately defensive and no longer contrite! “What a stupid, ugly, trashy woman” is what I was thinking, where a few moments before I was thinking “ah, I totally cut her off, I feel so bad”. Why can’t we all just assume the best of each other. I would hope that she didn’t think I cut her off on purpose. And if I didn’t cut her off on purpose, why couldn’t she be forgiving, realizing that sometime people do dumb things and that she might do it to someone else someday – rather than being instantly ticked off and angry? I’m sure she was cussing me all the way to her destination and it’s ruined her day, and I’m obviously perseverating on it still after 30 minutes.

I vow to assume the best of my fellow drivers and if I am upset, I will never show them my displeasure with such a crude, base gesture as the finger! You can hold me to that! And, now I am done venting and I’m going to let this go because I have other, better things to think about today.

Auto Mechanics 101

Some of the girls planned a lunch outing today and we decided to head up to a Arts and Crafts event at Sugarhouse Park. As we came out to leave, my friend's car wouldn't start. Luckily, we thought we were going to have 6 girls going so I had driven too. We pushed her car out of the parking spot and tried to jump start it. It wouldn't turn over still. So, we checked the radio and it worked, which was bad news in that it indicated a non-battery problem.

Well, we pushed the car back in the parking spot, piled 5 of us into my less than roomy BMW and came on back to work.

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The interesting thing of it all was that I felt like a dumb blond! Ask my dad- I know a thing or two about cars. I've changed brakes, I've replaced a muffler, I've changed oil and many other fluids, lights, air filters, tires - I'm really quite capable. Well, first off, I didn't know where the button was to pop the hood. Once we found that, we opened the hood but we couldn't actually locate the battery! What the heck? You'd think it would be easy to find . . . well, not so in them fancy foreign cars! I had to pull out the owner's manual to find that the battery is hidden down below and there are two "ports" where you hook the jumper cables. The "+" is a capped stick poking out from nowhere and then rather than a "-" you just put the black cable on a metal bar sticking out of the side of the car body so it is grounded.

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Why do they do that? Is this to ensure that if ever I am stranded I have to call them to come and help me? I suppose so. Is it so that I can't have my dad help me fix the car myself for cheap and I have to take it in to the dealership instead? Probably. What happened to the days when you could look under the hood and identify each car part and easily reach it to do the fix at home?

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As the 5 of us were leaning over the engine, a lady walked by and said "Any number of guys would give just about anything to have a picture of this!". I wish I did have a picture - would have been funny.