Are You SURE You’re Not Injured?

As the regular readers of The Doc File know, I was in a car accident which was not my fault a little over a month ago.

Starting a week or so after the accident, a steady flow of letters started trickling in. They usually began like this:

“Dear Robert (my first name):

This is a letter of solicitation. If you have already retained an attorney for your personal injury claim, please disregard this letter. Our investigations of police records indicate that you may have been injured in an accident…”

They would then go on to encourage me to call them, and then would try to persuade me why I should entrust my case to them—usually because they were cheap, or experienced in personal injury cases.

One of the lawyers was actually a former paramedic and even confided in me that he too had been in a car crash before he became a lawyer (as if this were a rare shared experience that would build trust with me)!

Unfortunately, none of these upstanding, respectable ambulance-chasers got any business from me, mainly because I didn’t suffer any injuries.

The fact that they were generally clueless about what my last name was didn’t help them either.

So Long, Kermit

For those of you distressed by the name in the title and the picture to the right, don’t worry: as far as I know, Kermit the Frog is as healthy as ever.

No, it’s Kermit the Saturn, my first automobile, that I am referring to.

As readers of this blog know, I was in a car wreck Sunday evening, which left Kermit in critical condition, and then Wednesday afternoon I got the news that he had been deemed “totaled.”

For most of the time I’ve had Kermit, I haven’t really been a big fan; I had to replace the engine within a month of buying him, and have had to deal with almost constant problems ever since.

Here is a (partial) list of former repairs and current problems that I’ve experienced with my car:

Former Problems/Repairs:

• Replace Engine
• Replace Alternator
• Replace Brakes
• Repair Passenger Side Electric Window
  
• Repair Rear Driver Side Electric Window
• Replace Serpentine Belt
• Tire Blow-out
• Repair Fuel Pump
  

Current Problems (Prior to the Accident):

• Coolant Leak
• Malfunctioning Driver Side Windshield Wiper
• Overheating in Idle
• 3 of 4 Air Conditioning Vents Broken
• Missing 3 of 4 Original Floor Mats
• Leaking Spare (Donut)
• Cracker Passenger Side Inner-fender
• Scratched Paint
• Dented Hood
• Broken Tape Player
• Broken Handle/Clothes-Hanger
• Cracked Reverse Light Cover
• Cracked Driver Side View Mirror
  

For a long time, the myriad of problems was a source of constant frustration for me, but recently, I started to appreciate how reliable Kermit was despite all of his problems.

It kind of reminds me of an athlete who has constant nagging injuries but still plays hard every day anyway. That’s the way I was as an ultimate player, so maybe it’s fitting that that is the kind of car I had.

That, and the fact that I bought Kermit used, in 2002, for $4,000, and I’ll be receiving $4,039 for him from the insurance company have helped me to better appreciate how good of a deal I originally got.

I went to the collision shop yesterday to clean out the car and say good-bye, and Kermit left me with a parting gift: $21.07 in change, collected from various places throughout the car.

When I got Kermit, a 1999 Saturn SL-2, he already had 85,000 miles on him. Later this month would’ve made five years, and in that time, I’ve raised the odometer to 126,000.

Those 41,000 miles over the last five years haven’t been perfect. In fact, they’ve generally been slower, louder and hotter than I would’ve liked, but all in all, they’ve been good miles.

Kermit, you were a good friend, and you will be missed.

A Long Afternoon

I like to take naps on Sunday afternoons, but I knew my nap time today would be severely limited by my having to be at the church building at 4:00 PM for the monthly elders’ and ministers’ meeting.

When I left, the Braves were down 4-2.

The meeting went okay, but it was loooooong, and I didn’t get out until 5:40. At that point I realized I didn’t have much time to get the PowerPoint announcements ready by church time, and so I began hurrying around the building, booting up the computer and tracking down people I needed to talk to for information.

At that point, I got a call from the wife, who informed me that she couldn’t find her car keys anywhere. After confirming that her keys weren’t in my car, I explained the situation to Larry (the preacher I work with) and a couple of others and went to go pick her up.

I had only made it about five minutes down the road when I got backed up at a stop light. In the left hand lane of a five lane road (two lanes each way and a turn lane), I began to inch my car forward when the light turned green.

As I started to pass a car which was stationary to my right, a car which was pulling out of a driveway to my right and trying to cross traffic caught my eye. It had pulled in front of the car to my right, but rather than stop to see if there was anyone in the left lane, the driver just zoomed ahead and plowed into my car, by the front passenger tire.


Needless to say, I didn’t make it back in time for church services.

Fortunately, neither of us was hurt, and we were able to get our cars out of the road without much trouble. Also fortunately, the accident wasn’t my fault, so the insurance shouldn’t be too much of a problem, and my parents were able to pick up my car key-less wife and come to get me.

Unfortunately, Kermit (my car) is now undriveable, and I have to deal with getting him fixed, hassle with insurance companies and get a rental car.

Then my dad informed me that after taking the lead, the Braves managed to lose in dramatic fashion late in the game.

So that’s the bad news.

The good news is that when I got home, I found the missing car keys.