Life's Little Woes

This past week I got into a car accident.

As I have done numerous times in the past, I went to my cousin's restaurant for some food, parked as I normally would, I didn't even get the opportunity to get out of my car before this truck backed into me. It was a gentle tap, as gentle as a truck can be, the onslaught of dread washed over me as the list of things to-do generated in my brain. How a fraction of a second could change weeks of your life.

You might ask, "Regina, how does this change weeks of your life? Their insurance would cover this right?"

Well, since this truck driver has been delivering to my cousin's restaurant for over a decade, he was a friend of sorts. He wanted to pay out of pocket so his boss wouldn't find out about his blunder. I understand. Who hasn't made a few mistakes in their lives before. His apologetic attitude and resoluteness to make things right by me convinced me to help him out.

I went to a reasonably priced body shop that I know of, it was about an hour away, got the quote and I knew there could be a change of events. I called the truck driver with the quote and sure enough he said, "It's a lot more than I expected. I'd have to go through insurance."

I thought, 'Okay, that works. Cuz $800 was just fixing it. The shop owner told me they had to repaint my car and that would take a couple days at least. I would have to rent a car, an hour away from my home. Inconvenient! If insurance is involved, then I can find any place around my house and they'll cover the cost of everything that's needed. This is a good turn of events! With car rental, it should come up to about $1000.'

It took a week for him to muster up the courage to bring it up to his boss.

Then.....

I saw him in the corner on the phone, shoulders hunched, head drooping, talking in an hush-hush tone. I felt really bad for him. I'm sure boss-man laid it into him. The poor guy.

The boss-man's view, "I have a thousand dollar deductible. If I report it to insurance I'd have to pay out of pocket now and next year I'd have to pay more for insurance. Tell her to go ahead and fix everything, give me the receipt and I'll reimburse her."

I mean.... I want to have faith in humanity and trust in a fellow man as much as the next girl but..... I have no idea who this man on the phone is! I don't know where he is, I don't know if he's a man that'll keep his word. There's a nano second that I felt this is a black hole moment. I should've just called the cops last week and gone thru insurance.

My cousin-in-law came with the full weight of her words. She will be the middle man in this situation. She will reimburse me and she will deduct the cost from the company.

Phew!

Let me hurry up and get this done before anything else happens. But my parts won't come in until next week. Even though I expect things to work out as planned...

Status: Pending.