phoenixgrl's Blog

Slip Sliding Away
Date: December 31, 2004, 12:55 am CST - Subscribe
Mood: comfortable
Music of the Moment: Planet, Schmanent Janet from Rocky Horror Punk Rock Show

So Dec. 3rd I'm on my way home from my first day of substitue teaching. I live way out in bfe up in the mountains. The weather had been a really shitty mix of snow and rain all day. The roads down in the valley were fine, but once I got to my little mountain town they were all covered in a layer of slushy snow.

So here I am driving along beboping to whatever cd I had in at the time, when I start to turn the wheel and my car just keeps going straight. I downshifted, and was overcome with the knowledge that there was no way I was going to regain control of the car before I went off the embankment and possibly into the lovely, freezing cold stream that runs along side the road. I was thankfully stopped from entering the stream by a set of rather large boulders.

I wasn't going very fast and managed to be unscathed myself. My car was not so lucky. So after catching my breath (and feeling that someone should have announced "please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle until it comes to a complete and utter stop"), I managed to climb up the snowy embankmet without breaking a ankle. I friendly passerby gave me a lift and I managed to call a tow truck to come and get it.

It takes the weekend for the tow service to realize that the car is undriveable. So I have them tow it to the dealership where I bought the car. When I first asked how much it was going to cost I was told about $128, but when the final bill came in it was about $400. Big difference there. My insurance will cover it as it was collision related, but I have discovered that dealing with them is almost more difficult than pulling a tooth.

So $3000 worth of repair later (thankfully I only had to pay the deductible, but just seeing that amount on a bill is enough to give this girl a panic attack), and damn near a month later (took the insurance company a week *after* the car was repaired to send me the check). I finally got my car back.

It might not have been so frustrating if I lived in town where there is a bus system. But no I live up in a little mountain town away from the rest of civilization (normally I love where I live, but it is not conductive to live without transportation). Thankfully I have an amazing group of friends (one in particular has been an angel), who have made sure I got to work and got where I needed to go.

The one who has been an angel also made sure I didn't spend the holidays by myself, which would have been a very *bad* thing.
My adopted family went out of town (origianally I was supposed to go too, but that didn't work out) for the holidays. So I was rattling around my suddenly quiet house, without transport anywhere. So it was really nice to have people who cared enough to make sure I didn't spend too much time brooding.

Too much brooding is bad for your health you know. So here's hoping that we all have fun and little brooding over the next few days of drucken revelry. Have a safe and happy New Year's folks!
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