A Confession.
So, Thursday — there I am, minding my own business, driving north on York Road, doin’ 40, maybe 45, when all of a sudden a big white pickup truck attempts to turn into the gas station to my right from the center turning lane. He’s close — very close. I slam my left foot onto the clutch and my right foot onto the brake and I clutch the steering wheel so hard my knuckles are white, but this is the seventh straight day of rain, and the car is quickly slowing but not fast enough and I know there’s no way I’m going to avoid a collision and the tires start to squeal the car starts to skid and thump!, I head on impact on his passenger side-rear panel, near the rear tire well of his truck.
The impact brought my car to a stop. He pulled into the gas station, and I followed him in. We spoke, briefly, and I called the Baltimore County Police Department. We exchanged information, the officer showed up, made sure we’d exchanged information, and gave us our incident number. The officer explained that since he hadn’t witnessed the crash, and since no one who saw the accident (dozens of people) came forward as a witness, there was nothing he could do as far as writing a report. Fine, I thought, I have all of this guy’s info and he’s Canadian, so I doubt he’ll lie.
(Damage to my vehicle estimated at $5200. Hood is crunched, right side quarter panel smashed in. The front bumper is falling off and both headlight brackets have snapped. There might be damage to the engine and possibly other parts of the “under the hood” vehicle.)
My Celica was driveable (the Barts would later advise me not to as there was possibly damage to the radiator), and I made a right-hand turn onto York, used the Gucci Giant’s parking lot to turn around, and pulled my vehicle into the lot of the Hunt Valley Autbody shop. And it was here that I started to panic because I realized that the sheet of notebook paper the Canadian had given me only contained his insurance binder policy number and the name of his insurance company. No name. No address. No phone number.
I panicked.
Long story short, this was a big problem: the insurance number he gave me was the one assigned to him by his insurance broker. His insurance company assigned a completely different policy number, and couldn’t search by the broker’s number. I had written down his truck’s license plate, but as a commercial vehicle, the agent I spoke to from my insurance company explained it might make tracking this individual down difficult — and without this person’s identity, it would be very difficult to convince the Canadian insurance company to pay the claim, meaning I’d possibly be facing paying my deductible and facing a rate hike.
This whole weekend I kept trying not to think of the accident, or my failure at the scene. I was really befuddled because I remember being very confident that when the police officer had arrived, I’d had all of the information I needed. I just couldn’t figure out how I could have been so confident when pretty clearly, I’d inadvertently shot myself in the foot. I was in an accident caused by the other driver. He admitted his fault and, okay, I was facing some minor inconvenience what with having a crappy gas hog rental for a few weeks, but I walked away and everyone was fine. And then I didn’t get his information, and it was really starting to look like I was going to resign myself to quitting my jobs and finding something in walking distance.
The whole weekend, I freaked, imagining a variety of disaster scenarios in which I was gang-raped by my insurance company’s thugs. I tried to comfort myself, telling myself that the person who hit me would report the incident to his company’s insurance agency, and that then his insurance company would contact mine. But I also thought that might be a bit far fetched and … well, long story short, I worried all weekend, and I worried all day today.
The Barts moved my car Monday morning, which added another scare — holy crap, thieves stole my wrecked car! In reality, they just moved it to the lower back parking lot. When I spoke to Bart Jr. yesterday afternoon, the adjuster from my insurance company still hadn’t shown up. I was going to call the woman handling my claim, but I didn’t want to deal with my overwhelmingly stupid error in not getting this other guy’s information.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
And then there I was, last night, pulling into a gas station to fill the hog Dodge Neon. And I take out my wallet looking for my American Express card because my checking account’s balance is spoken for by bills. And there starring me in the face is my Giant food Bonus Card, and I thumb past that to the the business card of the Enterprise Rent-A-Car manager I rented the Neon from, and I thumb past that and there’s a business card for a Canadian yacht company and I thumb past that and there’s my American Express card and I go to …
… Canadian yacht company? Why do I have a business card for some employee of a Canadian yacht company?
I mean, what the fuck would I ever need with a ya …
And then I remember this guy handing me two things. The first was the notebook paper with his insurance information on it. The second was his business card, the one I was looking at right then, the one will all of his information on it.
I was so excited I jumped up and down hooting and hollaring. There weren’t many people at the station — rural area — but I did get a few odd looks.
I guess I was so worked up on Thursday I blanked on getting the card. Then I stuck the Enterprise business card in front of it. I’m just completely dumbfounded. First thing I did when I got home tonight was to call the insurance account rep and leave her a voicemail apologizing for my complete and utter stupidity and farktardiness.
From Thursday afternoon until Monday evening, I was the biggest, stupidest, fucktard on the face of the fucking continent. Monday night, I was the luckiest person alive.