I can't believe it's almost Christmas. Since the accident, time has kinda been a bit of a blur. Of course, keeping busy has helped that. And playing World of Warcraft a lot .. it's a time sink, but one I'm willing to sink. I'm doing more than that, though. I keep the house up, I knit. I've finished a few things recently. I really want to finish my owl, though, and just keep working on other stuff. He'll get finished eventually.

So, the end result of the accident was that my Torrent was totaled. The guy at Griffin's body shop said bare minimum it would have been $11k worth of repairs. Minimum. That's pretty freaking scary.



The photos were taken on my phone .. which lost its battery in the crash, and I didn't notice till after I took the pictures. Considering I didn't own the car on the date the photos say they were taken, I figure that's pretty obvious.

It didn't look like that much .. of course, I never opened the hood. Honestly, I was scared to. Well, I was just plain scared. And what made things worse is immediately after, I had to drive around town. Not that day, but the following one. And I was soooooore. Just from the whole tensing thing .. I wasn't injured in the slightest. I guess I got lucky there.

So I had a rental car for a couple weeks, and then the guy's insurance company called to inform me they considered the car a total loss. They paid me $15k, and my insurance company paid the difference between that and the cost of my loan. Or my GAP insurance did, one or the other. Probably the GAP. Allstate - who we love more than life right now .. sent us a check just recently for the purchase of a new vehicle, which is helping quite a bit.

And a new vehicle had to be bought fairly quickly. I knew I wanted something similar to the Torrent, if not another Torrent. Looking at the damage, at the way he hit me .. had I been in a normal-sized car .. well .. I wanted the size of the SUV. So we looked at a couple. A Ford something-or-other, and a Subaru Tribeca. I also considered another Torrent because, well .. I loved that car, and i wanted it back. but after driving the Ford and then the Subaru, I really liked the ride in the Subaru. And it's even better rated for safety.

So that's what I picked. And they were able to find one form me by the time I had to give the rental car back to Enterprise .. but Jason and his Dad had to drive all the way up to Cary to pick it up. So they did .. driving one car each up to the dealership that had mine in trade, then driving home in my beautiful new car. I couldn't go, because I had to get the rental back between certain hours since Enterprise is only open for 3 hours on Saturday. WTF is up with that??

So I have a new baby. Bronze metallic is the color. It has leather .. heated seats even. A sunroof .. though they call it a moonroof. Dual climate control. It doesn't have XM - which is now Sirius/XM anyway .. nor does it have the rear climate controls that the one I test drove had. But I can plug in an MP3 player easily, and I can probably switch my XM account to the portable player I bought for Jason before he got his G6. I might not bother, though. That's a bill we can avoid for a while, and I think my account was due to expire soon anyway It's not much, but with the way things are right now, it'll help.

The Wreck

So.

Nearly a month go, it was my birthday. And it was set to be a pretty good day, despite the fact that I was going to have to work most of the day. Because it was My Birthday. How can -anything- bad happen on ones birthday? (We won't mention Mister Shakespeare here, kay?)

I was the first at a red light .. not by my choosing, it was red before I got anywhere close. And I was not in any hurry, so I waited. The light went green. I started to go ... and out of the corner of my eye on my side of the road came a flash of white. All I remember is screaming in terror. I was positive the vehicle .. I could not tell at the time what was speeding at my driver's side door .. was going to hit me and destroy life as I knew it. I have been told that the nice folks in the fire department building at that intersection heard the impact from inside. I do not remember hearing the impact. I remember my screams, and my sobbing. Wailing. Keening. Even after my car stopped moving .. at a peculiar angle I might add, tilted, like a sailboat making a fast, tight turn ... I screamed and sobbed.

I have never been so completely terrified in my life. The poor man in the BMW who witnessed the inci- acci- no, the crash .. this was not an accident because the idiot should have stopped when his light went red ... got out of his car and opened my door to find out if I was alright. I'm perfectly positive he got quite an earful but I don't remember really. I know I was crying, and cussing. but I was not hurt. By whatever power watches over me, I was not hurt. Scared? Boy was I scared. Not to the point of incontinence mind, but scared just the same. A woman .. I do not remember seeing her afterwards .. came to the door and told me to turn off my car and take out the keys. I did so, and hunted down the battery to my phone. Everything from my purse was scattered under my feet and on the passenger side.

I finally got out of the car as the police and paramedics showed up. I was still clearly in shock as they asked me if I was fine .. which I repeat, I was perfectly fine .. but they let me go to check on the other guy .. apparently his airbag deployed. I looked at the front of my car, perfectly prepared to see damage. I was not prepared for seeing the tire completely gone. My car had traveled probably 40 feet or so .. I'm a bad judge of distance .. without a tire. The axle scraped across the pavement for 40 feet or so before the car managed to stop. Now, I will point out I had just started from a red light turning green. I could not have been going but 5-10 miles an hour. The speed he had to have been going to push my car that far without a tire is unimaginable.

The first thing I did was call Jason. "Hi, honey? I've just been in an accident. The car has no tire." I'm sure that's what he needed to hear on his way to work, but he's a wonderful husband, and has an understanding boss, and he turned right around to come bring me home, but it was gonna take a good 45 minutes. I then tried to call the Impact rep and my boss .. and reached neither of them. But I'm sure getting a voicemail that says 'Hey Deb, it's Tania. I've been in a wreck, I can't go to work today.' certainly made her day exciting.

The paramedics insisted on taking my vitals at least, and I signed the release saying I refused to be taken to the hospital. Again, I didn't need to go. I felt a little bruise coming on my left elbow where it likely bumped the door. But I was fine, otherwise. The cop ... Timothy Allen ... came over to ask me what happened. I told him. he left me to go deal with the other guy. The BMW guy came over to me eventually and told me Mr Man in the now destroyed white truck told them I ran a red light, but of course I had his story backing me up that it was Mr White Truck that ran the light. Marie had texted me a happy birthday and I let her know about the crash. She called immediately to see if I needed her to come sit with me. I didn't, but it was very sweet. Deb finally called back, and my Impact rep Jim. both told me they were glad I was okay, and Deb said just to keep her updated as to when I could go back to work and stuff.

I just kept looking at my car. The firemen eventually found my tire. Underneath the Tacoma that hit me. He ripped my tire off. And my cv joint, I later discovered, as it fell from his bumper when they started to get his car towed. The entire driver's side front fender was smashed in. Completely. But there was nothing on the door. Looking back at it I realize just how lucky I got. Had I started going a little faster, or earlier, he would have hit the door. There's less metal there to protect me. I would have been really badly hurt. But my car .. my beautiful blue Torrent, she was badly damaged.

I held myself together pretty well, all things considered. I got the paperwork from the officer, and Jason walked me to his car to take me home. That's when I fell apart. I had just been in an accident .. not an accident, a wreck .. that by rights could have badly hurt if not killed me. I was wearing my seatbelt .. which I will never not do again .. and I got lucky. Jason hugged me and let me cry a little, then we went to the city impound lot, where they took the car .. to get things out of it. At this point, we were kinda hoping it got totaled. On the way home he gave me my birthday present. He hadn't even had time to wrap it, but it made me feel so much better even so. It certainly made a really bad beginning to my birthday a lot lot better.