THE SHITTIEST MONDAY IN RECENT MEMORY

So coming off of our opening weekend for Feng Shui in Philly, I found myself having the shittiest Monday in recent memory.

You see, it's just a little over a year to the day that I traded in my old Donkey (Subaru Impreza) for a 2003 pretty-damn-near-new Jeep Liberty I have named "The Gorilla" (you can ask me why in the comments).

This would all be fine and good.

Except that I got into a car accident today.

My baby is broken.

It was 9:30 in the morning and I was coming back from Lindsay's with Hucklebees - literally less than three miles away from my house. I was going to drop off the cat and my bags and go straight into work.

Well I'm at the turn to get into my neighborhood - a turn I've made hundreds of times. And as I'm approaching, I notice there's an unusual amount of traffic going north on Route 13, which is what I have to crossover to get into my neighborhood.

Route 13 is a three lane road. It's like a big boulevard - cement dividers between north and south - and special turn-offs for u-turns or left turns. You get the idea.

Anyway, there's a ridiculous amount of trucks and motor homes and trailers attached to trucks coming from the south. Apparently there was a NASCAR race in Dover I was unaware of. Either way, it made for a lot of traffic.

Now generally speaking, most Delaware drivers find themselves on the wrong side of dumb, as Narco would say. I was waiting at the stop sign to go straight across Route 13 for maybe ten minutes. Seriously. I was behind this woman who was making a left turn. Cars were waving her to go. She wouldn't. So I pull up along side of her on her right - many of us do this when we are trying to go straight at this stop sign when we are behind someone going left. If she wasn't going to take advantage of the nice people waving her through, I sure as hell was going to.

Now I should mention that there's a stop light about 100 yards to my right. Basically, the traffic going north on 13 was stopped at this red light and these cars noticed we were trying to either go straight or make a left turn and to their credit, were leaving us space to go. So I slowly start to go forward. I'm giving the obligatory wave to the two cars who have stopped and as I approach the trailer attached to the truck in the third row farthest away from the stop sign and closest to the street I was trying to get onto, I hesitated for a second. I inched forward for a second, counted to three, and then hit the gas gently to get past the truck.

It was at this point that there was suddenly a loud thud and my wheel went to the right. Realizing I was in the process of getting hit, I jerked the steering wheel to the left a little. My reflexes were good, except that I ended up hitting the gas a bit instead of the brake. In hindsight, this was a good thing and I'll explain that. But at the time, I ended up going over a nicely landscaped curb, felt the jeep going over a boulder in the nicely landscaped curb, and trying desperately not to hit the street sign or the "Rascals" sign for the restaurant that shares this curb. Turns out I landed just into a soft patch on the grass, but plummeted my car right before the landscaping got to include bushes and more rocks.

Now I'm pretty shaken, I turn to check on the cat, who is okay - turn off my car, grab my insurance, and walk out of the car. The driver of the other car is pretty shaken. His airbag had deployed and he was a little confused. I asked if he was okay. After he said yes, I started to call 911. A guy walked over to us and asked if we were okay - he had heard the crash from down the street and ran to make sure no one was hurt. That was nice of him. He stayed for a little bit to make sure we were okay.

It's at this point I realize the other driver has bruises along his arm and a cut knee. The impact of him hitting the airbag must have been pretty hard.

It's also at this point that I look at the front of my car. You'll see pictures below. My heart sank. I was also a little pissed. I could only think of my insurance at the cost, I'll have to admit.

It's fixable, though. I think.

So to make a very long story short, the state troopers didn't come for about an hour or so. So I sat there with the other driver. He was okay. He was from Philly. He was trying to call his daughter to pick him up. He was very nice. We agreed it was just an accident - we didn't see each other over the trailer - hey, shit happens. He said he wasn't going to sue me or anything. I said "Thanks." I should have said "I won't either." But I'll get to that.

So the trooper finally gets there to take all of our information. This is where the story gets bogged down in details. What is important is that I told her the story as I told all of you just now - a truncated version, though. Basically, he was in the lane closest to us and I had hesitated, I thought I had it clear and the next thing I knew, I was on this grassy and landscaped embankment.

The Rascals owner came out and took pictures and then told me that the county has enough to put a light there, they just won't. And he doesn't care about the property, he cares about people getting hurt. Apparently, two years ago, I guy flipped over his car and two weeks ago, some guy moved a huge bolder twenty feet with his car for the same reason. So he was saying that he was glad everyone was okay and that they need to put a traffic light there because it was so dangerous - it happened all the time.

Um.

So she takes the info as I'm calling my insurance and all that blah crap. She calls two tow trucks - very necessary. Had I slammed on my brakes at impact, I might have flipped over the Jeep. Okay. So I'm at least alive and fine. Then I get really upset. Why?

Because the other driver said he was in the lane, not on the shoulder. Which is an understandable mistake - people use that shoulder all the time as a lane. He had mentioned to me that he had pulled off to get a hot dog at the place next to rascals on his way home.

Of course, he had no cash and no cards on him, so I don't know how he was going to accomplish such a thing, but this is another story.

So I am the one who is at fault, according to the trooper. Failure to yield at a stop sign. Which is crap since I was stopped at it for ten minutes and was going because the cars had waved me through. This, of course, does not occur to me until the tow truck arrives and after Jackie and Sarah pick me and Hucklebee up and I'm at home and starting to piece it all together again.

I get a $50 fine. I had started to piece it together when the trooper was there, I asked her if the lane closest to us was a lane or a shoulder. She said a shoulder. Okay. I didn't quite put it together, but I was pretty damn sure at that moment that he was in the shoulder and not the lane.

I ask her about points on the license. She says it might be one or two points. She is really apologetic - she didn't want to have to place blame in the situation - at least that's the feeling I got. She said, "You don't have any points on your license, do you?" I said, "No. I've been in very very small accidents before this and no points were given." She looked really sympathetic and shrugged and said, "I'm really sorry."

So here's my dilemna: I am pretty damn sure that my account is correct. I very clearly remember waving to two cars in the first two lanes because I did it after I had passed the first car and wondered if the first car saw me. I was slowing down past the truck. If I'm correct, that's three lanes. In which case, I was blindsided on the shoulder. I've driven the damn thing so many damn times, been in the exact same situation and I know that once I get past the third car, I'm in the clear.

So do I contest this? I think that on principle, I need to. At the least, to impart the importance of putting a goddamned traffic light there. But here's the sticky part: it's my word against his.

Because no one - not one - in that long line of traffic - who saw the accident stopped. Not one of them stepped forward as a witness - no one even rolled down a window to see if we were okay. Tell me that I'm not crazy when I think that this is pretty damn egregious.

The only guy who stopped was a guy who heard the accident down the street - he never saw it. The Rascals guy was taking pictures of his property. And the guy who stopped had said, "You know, this is just an accident, but they'll probably tag the blame on you."

Right. I understand that. The other driver had the right of way. Or did he? If he was driving on the shoulder, did he have the right of way? If other cars stop to let me pass, I understand I have to be careful in the cross, but in a three lane highway where I had successfully passed three cars, is it my fault?

Thoughts? Comforting thoughts? Jesus. I'm just sitting here thinking through this logically and trying to apply some of my legally-conscious mind to it.

In the meantime, AFSCME came through in the clutch and got me a rental car the very same evening. At least I have that.

And my poor, poor gorilla is going to be appraised and then worked on. Oh, and it's not just body damage, apparently, the impact I had on the rock not only killed the front tire and probably the axle, but it also knocked something else out because there was oil and fluid leaking from my car when the guy towed it out. I just hope it's fixable and that they can get it back to where it once was. I am paying waaay too much money for this car to have it look like a piece of shit, I'll pay off that deductible some way.

I'm so not happy. Please tell me this isn't a sign of the week to come. It's only Monday.


Good thing my cellphone has a camera. I remembered it about thirty minutes after the accident. But this is pretty much it.


This is where my car came to rest.


Even got part of my passenger door. I can't open it all the way. Scratches along the passenger side all the way to the rear wheel. This is going to cost me a fortune.


Notice the wheel. Smashed.


Getting towed off of the embankment.


This is the last view I got of my car before I left. Sad.

Send happy thoughts. I'd appreciate it.