Learning "1st's" w/ Car

The house-sitting is over. I was at my sister's taking care of dog, Iola, and her cat, Emma (who I'm not fond of), while she and her husband went on a Disney Cruise with their in-laws. I'll write more about that later. While I was coming home one of the days from work, I was excited to be laving work and did not pay attention to my speed. Yep, I got a ticket, my first ever speeding ticket. I'm 25, never had one. I think that is something that I will not scrapbook about though.

I had another learning first with my car today, it was wrecked. I had left Forte home to head to school and was going through the intersection on 2700 South and State Street. The light was green, I had the right of way. Two cars had turned left in the gap of traffic, the third following thought he had time to make it as well. Wrong!



Mostly the front, passenger side of the the car was mangled. In general the whole front end is wrecked. I tried to brake, but there was no way I could actually stop at that short of distance. I saw the guy going into to his turn and thought, "Oh! You better not!" Again, wrong! I screamed and my heart was pounding. My car actually still ran that I pulled it out of the road off to the side, the front bumper dragging. I got out and asked if he was okay and his passengers. I asked him if he was insured, which he said yes to. The woman in the white car behind me had stayed and called the police and gave her witness report, so I had back up that it was not a he-said/she-said case.



I was not injured, wearing my seat belt, and my airbags didn't go off from the way the impact was. The ambulance still came to check people out because one of the passengers in the other car was pregnant. But overall, no one was visibly hurt. I was so scared that my heart was pounding and hands were shaking as I got my insurance and registration info for the police. After a few minutes, I saw the police arresting the other driver. I am not sure what the charges were, but another officer told me that the driver was un-insured (the jerk lied to me) and they suspected him of maybe being under the influence of drugs as I asked if he was drunk.

I called all my family and my sister was the first person I could reach and she kept trying to get ahold of someone to pick me up, obviously couldn't drive home. I started crying to her on the phone, I was so freaked out. Her husband left work and came and took all my stuff home. I cleaned out most of my car. My dad will get the rest tomorrow, I may never see it again.



Sounds silly for a car, but I liked my car. It was a 1997 Toyota Corolla. Older, yes, but it has always been dependable. I took it to California multiple times and while I lived there. It worked for me. I also had paid it off a year ago. I looked at it as my fail safe that if I was ever homeless, I at least owned my car. I would have been seriously injured if or worse if I had a bike. That car protected me.

I should get a rental in the next few days and my insurance company will assess if if can be salvaged...maybe not due to the value being around $2,000-4,000. We'll see what happens.

Life sucks sometimes. I hate stupid people like that. I am proud of myself that I actually had a clear head through out this, I took pictures with my phone for insurance, I wasn't rude (though tempting to tell that guy what I think for endangering his daughter), and I actually did not swear at all during this. In my mind, I know that my sometimes potty mouth is not so ingrained, there is hope for my act to be cleaned up.

I keep thinking of all the things I don't have to do now: oil change, fix the windshield chip, wash it, fix the squeaky belt, clean the dog hair out.