And Then It Hit Me

I don't know why it's taken me so long to post this little story since I'm usually all about the stories but whatever. Here's a story for a Thursday afternoon.

Two weeks ago tomorrow I was driving along 101 in typical rush hour traffic. Stop. Go. Stop. Go. You know the deal, same old, same old. That is, until the little Corolla in front of me stopped short. Since *I* was paying attention, I managed to stop without hitting him. And yet ... I still heard brakes screaming. BAM!

Unfortunately Mrs. Chen wasn't paying such close attention. In fact, Mrs. Chen was going at such a good clip she managed to send me flying into the little Corolla in front of me. There were all kinds of funny smells and smoke but eventually Mrs. Chen and I made it to the side of the freeway. I guess Little Corolla had better things to do because at first it looked as though he was going to join us but then he left.

To say I was pissed off would be an understatement. My stupid car, which is possessed, had been in the repair shop all week for a mysterious ailment that had even stumped the repair man and now it looked at though there were going to be other "ailments." Mrs. Chen's car had a few ailments of it's own. Like an accordion shaped hood. I insisted we call the CHP since Little Corolla had taken flight and I didn't feel like being held responsible for any damages down the road.

The CHP showed up an HOUR later. Officer Campbell took our report and asked Mrs. Chen, "How fast do you think you were going?" "I no go fast!" she blurted out. "Well how fast is that?" responded Officer Campbell. "I go 10 miles," answered Mrs. Chen. Officer Campbell made mention of the fact that not only was her hood crumpled but her air bag had deployed, was she sure she was only going 10 miles an hour? "15?" suggested Mrs. Chen. Officer Campbell wrote down 25.

Since then it's been a non-stop round of doctor's visits, phone calls with insurance people and blah dee blah. Fortunately, Mrs. Chen was in good hands with Allstate and they're picking up the tab for everything. Including this:

This, loyal reader, is the Key To Happiness. A 2010 Dodge Charger, also known as my rental car. And now you shall know one of my little secrets - I am a total car whore. I love cars. Love, love, love them. Especially fast cars. Especially fast rental cars. I am so smitten with this car it's ridiculous. I want to marry this car. I don't know how I'll ever give it back. I was actually calculating how much it would cost to just rent this car FOREVER. I am no longer driving a soccer mom car, I am driving A CAR. And it sounds like the repair shop is going to have my evil Hyundai for at least another week. I get to keep MY Charger for the entire long weekend!

So even though I'm still supremely pissed at Mrs. Chen at least now I can go fast enough to get out of her way.