When Ice Attacks
This morning we spent an hour sitting in an office doing nothing. It wasn’t exactly what I expected a car appraisal to be like, but really, I’m not sure what I was expecting. We got there at 8-ish and sat and waited for a guy to come in and take our key so he could leave again to look at our car. He then came back told us he’d looked at the car, gave us the key back and went to type up what he’d written down. At last he returned to us and sat down to explain what all had happened to our car.
But I’m starting at the end of the story here. It all started on Thursday as I was driving up to hang out at my parents’ place and get my hair cut with Mom. We had gotten a lot of snow the day before and were supposed to get a lot of snow the day after, but Thursday was supposed to be perfectly clear, so I wasn’t concerned for my car’s safety. Apparently I should have been. As I’m driving behind some white car I see something moving under it. Whether it was dropped from under the car or the car drove over it, I’m not sure, but it bounced along a bit before being launched at my right headlight. What I had assumed was a black clump of snow, likely to splat on my car was actually solid ice that hit my car with a significant “thunk.”
I knew it sounded bad, but my car didn’t freak out or even shudder at the impact, so I figured I would check it out once I got to my parents place, as long as Gypsy didn’t start acting funny or anything. And she didn’t. She was fine the rest of the way to my parents house and by the time I got there, I was more concerned with the fact that my windshield wiper fluid wasn’t spraying and I should clean the windshield off before I forgot. And then there was Em, very eager for pets and I wanted to get in the house and grab Mom before we were actually late for our hair appointments. I glanced at the front but it didn’t look too bad, just a little scuffed. It wasn’t until I got back and my dad asked what happened to my car that I saw the real damage.
Broken headlight case, but the light still works, dented in and the hood is askew, but otherwise it didn’t seem so bad. And she was still driving just fine, so I wasn’t super worried about it. I mentioned it to my husband after I picked him up and we left Aldi’s with supplies for the wintery weekend. He was much more concerned about the ordeal than I had been and looked at the car when we got home and noticed more of the damage. It was clear that we were going to have to take her in for some repairs, but the thought was, it’s just cosmetic, mostly.
So we entered the world of big-kid car repairs. We called the insurance to make a claim and set up an appointment to get the car appraised and probably get it all fixed up, we weren’t super sure. We had no idea what was actually going to happen this morning, just that we’d find out and the insurance would cover it, thank the Lord. It’s amazing what a head-sized chunk of ice can do to a car going 65 mph. The guy sat down with us and showed us his long list of damages done to our car. Things were bent and cracked and dented all over the place. They have to order new parts and take the bumper off and probably straighten things inside the car, and there are things they won’t know if they need to fix or replace or what until they start taking her apart. I had no idea there was so much wrong underneath.
We made an appointment to drop the car off next month, the soonest we can get her in. It also happens to be right after we move, so that’ll be fun. We’ll take her over Monday morning and get a rental car that will be waiting for us there and a week or two later we should have our car back, good as new. I honestly thought it would be, maybe a day or two of work. But no, silly Purps. So we’ll see how this goes. The thought of driving a rental car around is a little intimidating, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’m just thankful that it’s all covered and that we have people around us to help us out, and tell us what to do. We’ve been blessed with so much support around us and so many people taking care of us and looking out for us, and we are very thankful right now.
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