Hi! What's up? How's it going?
I totaled my car last night!
Yeah, my Sentra, she is Toast.
Or as they say here in the South, “I Wrecked her.”
Big time.
The accident was, to put it in Insurance Terms: Completely and utterly my fault.
I rear-ended a woman who was driving a Toyota Camry. And not that Toyota needs any advertising assistance from me, but there was nary a dent on her car, despite the following destruction to my vehicle:
Windshield shattered.
Front end crumpled like the foil from yesterday's sandwich.
Passenger side door bent shut.
But the Camry?
Not a scratch.
The replay:
Me. Approaching I40E/24W split
Trying to get into left lane
Look over left shoulder
No room to get in
Look back
Camry two feet in front of---
Explosion (the airbags deploying)
and smoke (from the airbags deploying)
and a horrific smell, which, at the moment of impact, I mistook for the stench of my own untimely death, but was really … the airbags deploying.
Somehow my car and I made it safely to the left shoulder without being hit. (This is the floaty weird unexplainable part that's a whole other post for a whole other kind of Web site). At this point, I was still suspecting my deadness. And I was pretty calm about it—not at all pleased, but calm--because I was feeling no pain. I looked down at myself to see if any of my body parts had fallen off.
Chest?
Check.
Torso?
Check!
Arms?
Slightly burned and bruised from the airbags, but present and accounted for!
Check! Check!
All was silent, and I sat for a moment trying to figure out if I was alive—and then my lungs started filling with smoke (which was really just airbag dust), and I thought, aha! I am alive! I must roll down the window! Clever girl.
And, just to be sure I was not a ghost of my clever self, I got out of my car to see if anyone could see me. And they could! So I was all, Yay! Jennifer Love Hewitt will not have to Ghost Whisper to me and then tell all my loved ones that I love them and that I’m watching them proudly from the Great Beyond.
So, this poor woman in the Camry is just sitting there waiting for the police to come so she can drive off in her unharmed vehicle. And she lets me sit with her in her car because my car is filled with the foul airbag dust. And I start rambling on and on about how WEIRD it all was, and how I thought maybe I died … and she’s nodding and smiling OH SO CAUTIOUSLY, because clearly I am a mentally unstable person.
And also, perhaps a con artist.
When we exchanged insurance information she grew suspicious. I had just the night before put my renewed insurance cards in my wallet. The effective date? October 4th.
"You just got insurance today?" she asked.
Hour passes.
Policeman comes.
He is not so very nice. Or friendly.
I yank some Southern charm from the farthest recesses of my soul and start saying "yes sir and no sir" and then the policeman likes me and smiles and has no front teeth and decides he will wait with me for the tow truck to come.
Forty minutes pass.
Tow truck comes.
Tow truck guy is nice with a white butt crack smiling out from the back of his Big and Tall jeans. I smile back at it.
And him.
And he drives me and Bessie home in his enormous muffler-less beast of a truck.
I wave to my boys from the cab and jump out.
And for a moment I am the coolest--(most grateful)--mom on the block.
I totaled my car last night!
Yeah, my Sentra, she is Toast.
Or as they say here in the South, “I Wrecked her.”
Big time.
The accident was, to put it in Insurance Terms: Completely and utterly my fault.
I rear-ended a woman who was driving a Toyota Camry. And not that Toyota needs any advertising assistance from me, but there was nary a dent on her car, despite the following destruction to my vehicle:
Windshield shattered.
Front end crumpled like the foil from yesterday's sandwich.
Passenger side door bent shut.
But the Camry?
Not a scratch.
The replay:
Me. Approaching I40E/24W split
Trying to get into left lane
Look over left shoulder
No room to get in
Look back
Camry two feet in front of---
Explosion (the airbags deploying)
and smoke (from the airbags deploying)
and a horrific smell, which, at the moment of impact, I mistook for the stench of my own untimely death, but was really … the airbags deploying.
Somehow my car and I made it safely to the left shoulder without being hit. (This is the floaty weird unexplainable part that's a whole other post for a whole other kind of Web site). At this point, I was still suspecting my deadness. And I was pretty calm about it—not at all pleased, but calm--because I was feeling no pain. I looked down at myself to see if any of my body parts had fallen off.
Chest?
Check.
Torso?
Check!
Arms?
Slightly burned and bruised from the airbags, but present and accounted for!
Check! Check!
All was silent, and I sat for a moment trying to figure out if I was alive—and then my lungs started filling with smoke (which was really just airbag dust), and I thought, aha! I am alive! I must roll down the window! Clever girl.
And, just to be sure I was not a ghost of my clever self, I got out of my car to see if anyone could see me. And they could! So I was all, Yay! Jennifer Love Hewitt will not have to Ghost Whisper to me and then tell all my loved ones that I love them and that I’m watching them proudly from the Great Beyond.
So, this poor woman in the Camry is just sitting there waiting for the police to come so she can drive off in her unharmed vehicle. And she lets me sit with her in her car because my car is filled with the foul airbag dust. And I start rambling on and on about how WEIRD it all was, and how I thought maybe I died … and she’s nodding and smiling OH SO CAUTIOUSLY, because clearly I am a mentally unstable person.
And also, perhaps a con artist.
When we exchanged insurance information she grew suspicious. I had just the night before put my renewed insurance cards in my wallet. The effective date? October 4th.
"You just got insurance today?" she asked.
Hour passes.
Policeman comes.
He is not so very nice. Or friendly.
I yank some Southern charm from the farthest recesses of my soul and start saying "yes sir and no sir" and then the policeman likes me and smiles and has no front teeth and decides he will wait with me for the tow truck to come.
Forty minutes pass.
Tow truck comes.
Tow truck guy is nice with a white butt crack smiling out from the back of his Big and Tall jeans. I smile back at it.
And him.
And he drives me and Bessie home in his enormous muffler-less beast of a truck.
I wave to my boys from the cab and jump out.
And for a moment I am the coolest--(most grateful)--mom on the block.
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