Get Off The Road Old Man!!

. . . It's a balmy Sunday and I'm leaving Target, with my loot tucked safely in the back, when out of nowhere, a car slams into me. Actually, I slammed into the drivers' side door, and messed up my right front corner. I had a protected arrow to turn left onto the main road and the other car ran his red light, going full speed. Turns out the driver was an 80 year old man, with a way out of date license (we're talking so old the license was actually typed, with a glued photo in the corner then laminated) and no insurance. He was also so out of it that he didn't even notice that I had done any damage to his car, and let me tell you, there was DAMAGE! I don't know if the guy was drunk, had Alzheimer's, or what but he was oblivious. I had to practically take him by the hand and lead him out of the road before his cane was knocked out of his hand by an oncoming car.

As I'm standing there, getting more and more steamed over the situation, it hits me. . . I haven't paid my car insurance bill since. . . Oh, I don't know. . . April, maybe. Which means. . . Wait for it. . . I also don't have insurance. Somehow that bill completely slipped my mind after the fire and I never updated my mailing address with the company. For whatever reason, I never got anything in the mail from them after I filled out my change of address form with the post office either. Talk about an ironic slap in the face. I was so concerned about renters insurance after the fire (didn't want to be screwed again), that I completely forgot about my car insurance!

Well, this changed everything. . . Since I was also without insurance, a state requirement here, I decided to just exchange information with the man and get on my merry way. Which, as you can imagine, made him insanely happy. Me on the other hand, all I wanted to do was kick that sad little cane of his out from under him. I had to keep reminding myself that the last thing I needed was for the cops to show up and get involved. It would just make this whole experience even more expensive. Not only would I be covering the repairs to my car on my own, but I'd also have a big fat ticket to pay on top of it. Plus, I was up against a shaking, frail old man. A cop was bound to take his side, even if the whole thing was his fault. No thank you!

We exchanged information, the man with the expired license and quivering legs, got back into his car with the bruised door and I in mine. She's (my car) now the new owner of a scraped lip and a new dimple to her right cheek. The repairs, I'm told, will be about $2500 which will have to wait until after Christmas sometime. So, for now I'm learning to embrace her abnormalities. (And cursing the old man every day)