My Brush with Death

Yesterday I drove my puny Saturn SL1 up to Temple, Texas to visit a client hospital in that town. I drove 200 miles in perfect safety. I pulled into the access drive that led past the hospital parking lots to the facility plant. As I drove past one of the entrances to the parking lots, a hospital patient pulled his vehicle into the street and hit my car.

He was driving a large Jeep. He had poor eyesight and apparently didn't know I was there. He also didn't stop fully at the stop sign, so he had some momentum behind him. Worst, he had an RV hitch mounted on the front of his car. I'm not sure why the law allows people to drive around with those things, as they are essentially a large can-opener mounted on one's front bumper.

The entire thing lasted a fraction of a second. His hitch plowed into my passenger side front hubcap and cut backwards as my car went past, shearing through my side panels and door. It hashed the right side of the car's structure, sendings bits and pieces flying everywhere. The force of the impact sent the whole car off to the left side of the road. Airbags deployed.

Shaking off my daze, I found myself essentially unharmed, but in a car full of smoke. I bailed out of the car at speed, only to discover that nothing was on fire -- the 'smoke' was really just the fine powder in the airbags, and nobody was going to be doing their Dukes of Hazzard impression. The driver of the other car was okay too. Bystanders were very concerned for my safety, since apparently the crash had looked pretty gnarley and personal injury-esque. Certainly the wreck looked pretty impressive after the fact; the right side of my car is fairly smooshy.

The hooks of his hitch were pretty well set into my Saturn, but we managed to separate the vehicles and repair to the parking lot to settle matters. At first I thought perhaps the vehicle might be driveable back to Houston, but after seeing that the rim of my tire was bent (although, oddly, the tire wasn't flat) and the car structure was damaged, that option went out the window. A police officer took our statements, we exchanged insurance info, and we went our ways.

I took care of my business, and then filed various claims on his insurance. I also got a rental car. Two developments there:

1) Despite my protestations, a nice young man at the rental agency insisted on helping me transfer the contents of my car's trunk to the rental car. This is never a good idea, because my trunk is often full of scary things. Yesterday it contained a bunch of roleplaying materials, my sprawling collection of disc golf frisbees, and several ominous black binders with the logo of the Department of Homeland Security on it. "What are *these*?!" the guy asked fearfully. "Oh, you know," I said modestly, "they're old." I also had some rolled-up plans of high-rise buildings. I don't think he noticed.

2) I had to sit in the rental office for hours while the insurer wrestled with who was going to pay for the rental car, and how much they would spring for. As I sat, people came and rented most of the cars out of the lot. At the end of the day the branch manager approached me with a big grin. "Well, this is your lucky day," he said. "The insurers will only pay $25 a day, but because you're such a good egg, we're going to let you take the Chevy Tahoe." For those unaware, the Tahoe is an SUV the approximate size of Rwanda. I told him that I didn't want his gas-guzzling monster; I wanted something small and cheap that wouldn't destroy the environment. I argued and argued, but eventually it turned out that the Tahoe was all they had left. So now I'm driving something that might as well be an H2, barely fits in my office garage, doesn't fit in my home garage at all, and consumed $50 of gas just going from Temple to Houston. Suck!

Anyway, all is well. I'm looking for a new vehicle. I'm also pleased to have survived the accident, as I'm very concerned that if I unexpectedly die, somebody will eventually find my stash of porn. It's also a good feeling to know that it takes more than jagged ruin and high-speed death to slow down the Sol-meister. Nuke me from orbit; it's the only way to be sure.